MECHA1 // y * K E N N E D Y'S /^ COLONIAL TRAVEL A NARRATIVE OF A FOUR YEARS' TOUR THROUGH AUSTRALIA, NEW ZEALAND, CANADA, &c, BY DAVID KENNEDY, JUNIOR, A MEMBER OF THE KENNEDV FAMIKY OF SCOTTISH VOCALISTS. EDINBURGH PUBLISHING COMPANY. LONDON: SIMPKIN, MARSHALL, & CO. PREFACE. IT was my good fortune during 1872-76 to accompany my father on a professional tour, singing the Songs of Scotland round the world. Ours was a family-party, consisting of my father, mother, two sisters, two brothers, "Cousin Tom" (busi- ness agent), and myself. We travelled minutely through the Colonies, visiting nearly every town and village in Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. From time to time, during a period of three years, I sent " Notes of our Colonial Travel " to the Edinburgh papers the Daily Review and the North British Advertiser and Ladies' Journal. These articles, with some alterations and many additions, are here reprinted. DAVID KENNEDY, JUNIOR. 8 ST ANDREW'S TERRACE, NEWINGTON, EDINBURGH, October 1876. /<: ^^ "MBC Ntoa 1 CONTENTS. CHAP. PAGE I. Arriving at Port Phillip Description of Melbourne, . i II. Ballarat Down a Gold Mine Geelong A Hot-wind Day, ...... 16 III. Sandhurst Echuca Buying Coach and Horses A Bush-Storm Melbourne at Christmas, . . 29 IV. A Squatting-Station A Drove of Kangaroos The Bush and Bush- Roads The Middle Diggings, . 42 V. Overland from Melbourne to Sydney A Bush Concert Beechworth "Camping Out" Wagga Wagga Funeral of an Explorer, . . . . 57 VI. Sydney and Sydney Harbour, .... 69 VII. Brisbane The Wilds of Queensland The Gympie Gold Field The Queensland Blacks, . . 79 VIII. Rockhampton Station Life Queensland Ports The Darlings Downs The Queensland Tin Mines, . 94 IX. The New England District A Bush Inn The Hunter River District The Hill End Country Bathurst, 109 X. A Trip through Tasmania Hobart Town The Tale of a Convict Launceston, . . . 131 XI. South Australia Adelaide A Feast of Grapes A Plague of Mosquitoes The Country Towns, . 148 XII. Voyage to New Zealand Dunedin Sunday in Dunedin The Water of Leith Christmas and New Year's Day, . . . . . 155 XIII. A Tour through Otago Tokomairiro Gabriel's Gully A Concert in a Barn Invercargill The High- lands of Otago, ..... 168 XIV. Lake Wakatip Queenstown The Gold Towns of Otago Gorge Scenery Northern Otago, . 182 XV. Perilous Fording of the Waitaki Crossing the Can- terbury Plains The City of Christchurch Port Lyttelton, ...... 191 XVI. Wellington The Hutt Valley Cook's,* Straits- Nelson, ...... 207 Vlll Contents. CHAP. PAGE XVII. Taranaki Mount Egmont The City of Auckland The Thames Gold Field A Maori Debauch, . 223 XVIII. The Waikato Valley Rangariri Battle-field A Military Outpost A Weary Horse-ride A Night in a Maori House, ..... 243 XIX. The Volcanic Country Bathing in a Hot Lake A Maori Pah The Great Geyser of Whaka-rewa- rewa, ...... 257 XX. Pierre's "Maison de Repos" Rotomahana The White Terrace The Hot Springs The Pink Terrace A Dangerous Horse-ride, . . 268 XXI. Lake Taupo Tongariro, the Burning Mountain Napier Hawke's Bay Province A New Zealand Forest, ...... 282 XXII. Crossing the Manawatu Gorge A Maori Grievance Wanganui Winter in Otago Leaving New Zealand, ...... 295 XXIII. A Flood in Melbourne A Fancy Ball The Australian Derby-day The Ex-king of Fiji A Terrible Storm Voyage to Honolulu, . . . .310 XXIV. The Sandwich Islands Honolulu Tropical Scenery The Kanakas, . . . . . 319 XXV. California San Francisco The City and the People Oakland San Jose Sacramento, . . 328 XXVI. The Trans-Continental Railway Salt Lake City A Mormon Sermon A Trance Lecturess Chicago Hotel Life in America, .... 342 XXVII. Crossing into Canada The City of Toronto Hamilton Niagara Falls Autumn in Ontario, . . 361 XXVIII. Winter Life in Ontario Sleigh Journeys Country Hotels The Canadian Farmer, . . . 370 XXIX. Country Churches in Ontario Horse-racing in Winter A Journey in a Snow Storm Kingston Ottawa, ...... 385 XXX. Montreal The River St Lawrence The Mountain ' ' Tobogganing " The Ice- " Shove " Quebec, . 394 XXXI. The Maritime Provinces New Brunswick Nova Scotia, ..... . 407 XXXII. Newfoundland St John's The City and the Harbour Cod Fishing Sealing The Scenery of New- foundland Home Again, . . . . 425 KENNEDY'S tOLONIAL TRAVEL CHAPTER I. ARRIVING AT PORT PHILLIP DESCRIPTION OF MELBOURNE. ABOUT dawn on a Sunday in June 1872, we sighted Cape Otway, the mountainous promontory of the Victorian coast, after a protracted voyage of ninety-three days from Glasgow, in the clipper ship " Ben Ledi." Our passage, though long, had not been more eventful than commonly befalls the Australian voyager. We caught the usual albatross, and killed the customary shark ; had the inevitable glimpse of dreamy Madeira, and crossed the Line with grog and ceremony ; had, as a matter of course, a quick run from the Cape of Good Hope, and latterly were doomed to the baffling winds that generally overtake a vessel when within sight of its long- expected destination. After leaving the timbered ranges of Cape Otway, which loomed sombrely through the morning mists, the land gradually lost its majesty, passing by easy transition from mountain to hill, and from hill to knoll, until near Port Phillip it degenerated into a decidedly pancakey coast, flat and uninteresting. Soon we were pleasantly surprised by the arrival of the pilot, a dapper, trim-whiskered man, who began his reign of office by ignoring the captain, and anathematising in a gentlemanly manner every block, pulley, and brace within the limits of the ship. With singular foresight, he had brought one newspaper with him, and we doubt if ever that journal was so popular before or since, or that so many persons ever tried to read off one copy as on that occasion. Becoming disgusted with the meagreness of the nc\vs. the popular voice turned on the pilot, who seemed to be bursting (as far as it might be thought fit and proper for him to burst) with some weighty communication, and I am happy A Kennedy s Colonial Travel. to state that twelve well-balanced minds went to rest that night with the sublime consciousness of knowing the name of the horse that won the Derby. The Heads which form the entrance to Port Phillip Bay are about two miles apart, though when approached from the sea the channel appears much narrower, owing to the points of land considerably overlapping each other. On the western shore stands the neat-looking township of Queenscliff, and principal piloting station of the bay, which we passed in the twilight, just as the great " rip " or inflowing tide swept along with the noise and rush of a distant avalanche, bearing the ship onwards at fully six knots an hour. As the current subsided into a gentle ripple, there came tolling over the water the Sabbath evening bell from the Queenscliff Church, which was answered by the hollow roar of the anchor-chain as we came to our moorings for the night in Port Phillip Bay. Early next morning, after a ceremonious visit from the health officer, we tacked up the bay against a strong head wind, mak- ing very slight progress, and exhausting what little patience we had remaining. As we proceeded towards Melbourne the scenery became more interesting, the eye being delighted with large plantations sloping down to the shore, and dotted with very desirable mansions, the country houses of the great city merchants and the budding aristocracy of Victoria. Half-way up the eastern shore rose a lofty and commanding bluff, clothed with gum-trees to the very summit, and bearing the name of Arthur's Seat, but with no resemblance to its Scottish namesake save in point of height ; while to the extreme westward appeared dimly the mountain of You Yangs, which stands near the shores of Corio Bay, and is distant a few miles from the town of Geelong. Towards evening we arrived near Hobson's Bay, where the pilot again determined to anchor out all night, much to the annoyance of all on board, to whom the twinkling lights on shore had a very tantalizing appearance. Early next morning, we were laboriously making headway against the gale which was still blowing in our teeth. On the right shore appeared the beautiful suburbs of Brighton and St Kilda, the favourite watering-places of the metropolis a collection of elegant villas, graceful churches, and fine hotels ; while at the head of the bay stood Melbourne, its towers and spires showing but dimly through the great cloud of dust that overhung the city. On the left, easily distinguished by its shipping and busy stir, lay Melbourne. the port of Williamstown, our desired haven, which we were not destined to reach, however, till late in the afternoon. The first person to come on board, regardless of Custom-house laws, was an enterprising butcher, who diligently sought the captain's ear for the privilege of serving the ship with meat while in port, and who, on the arrival of Her Majesty's officers up one side of the vessel, disappeared over the other with an agility that bespoke long practice. The deck soon swarmed with boatmen, hotel touters, luggage porters, and friends of the passengers, all in a state of bustle and excitement. An un- gentlemanly character departed with our luggage in one direc- tion, while our friends took us in another, the whole of us fall- ing latterly into the clutches of a zealous boatman, who was determined to have us at all hazards the rest of the sailing craft, by a singular fatality, being very dangerous and untrustworthy as compared with his, which would take the whole party over to Sandridge for a sum at that moment too contemptible to be spoken of in the presence of gentlemen. After a short sail we landed at this suburb one minute before the starting-time of the train to Melbourne. Being full of the traditions of the old country, we made a frantic dash, clearing the Customs in an unusual and unconstitutional manner, and arriving a minute past the time. The guard was authoritative and fuming, so we entered the train with meekness, and an expression of sorrow in our coat-tails. After sitting patiently for about five minutes, we look out and see, by the lamplight, the guard picking his teeth consecutively and holding a lively tete-a-tete with a female friend. We watch him, with an evil twinkle in our eye sugges- tive of a letter to the papers, and have just got the first sentence graphically constructed, when the train starts off, and we find ourselves in a very lumbering and boxy railway carriage, seem- ingly without any springs, which we are happy to quit when we reach the Melbourne station. But first impressions are, like printers' first proofs, not to be trusted, and liable to subsequent correction. We drove off from the station in an Albert car, a two-wheeled vehicle with glazed leather sides and top, and with a swinging jolt that is anything but pleasant to the unaccustomed arriving at one of the principal hotels, a substantial building just like any similar establishment in the old country, with the usual blaze of light at the entrance, the same resplendent shirt-front and black suit ready to usher you in, and the ever-present street arab helping you to alight. Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. After disposing of a sumptuous meal a combination of breakfast, dinner, and supper we strolled out to have a moon- light peep at Melbourne, inaugurating our walk by purchasing at a fruit shop a magnificent pine-apple for sixpence. Bourke Street, the principal business thoroughfare of the city, was filled with a busy crowd of people promenading before gaily-lighted shops and gas-flaring stands the housewife with her basket, intent on purchases; the native Australian youth or "corn- stalk;" the Chinaman with his stereotyped face; lounging fellows with big beards and tall slouched hats ; Frenchman and German ; English, Scotch, and Irish all blending in one common throng. After walking for about half-an-hour amid this lively scene, we turned into Collins Street, the afternoon promenade of the fashion and beauty of Melbourne, but found it almost deserted, the only persons visible being some stray individuals saunter- ing to their club, and bank clerks hurrying home after their day's business, the comparative silence of the street being occa- sionally broken by the sad notes of a wandering minstrel playing his flageolet before one of the fashionable hotels. Melbourne, viewed simply as a speedy aggregation of bricks, mortar, and population, is an astonishing city. Receiving, like San Francisco, its great vitality from the discovery of gold, it has sprung up, mushroom-like, within the memory of this generation. Melbourne has now a population, including the suburbs, of 200,000 a fourth of the inhabitants of the colony of Victoria. The city rises on the north bank of the Yarra Yarra River. This little stream is sweet and sylvan in and about Melbourne ; but further down, between the city and the bay, its waters are laden with the noisome stinks of chemical works and tanneries. It has a very tortuous course, and takes eight miles to go from Melbourne to the bay, which, as the crow flies, is scarcely a third of that distance. Viewed from an eminence, the river bears a strong resemblance to a liquid cork-screw. The principal streets of the city are one mile long, 100 feet wide, and run at right angles to each other. Eliza- beth Street divides the city into east and west, and lies in the valley formed by the two hills upon which Melbourne is situated. The drainage of the city is open, a stream of water running down each side of the street, with small wooden bridges at frequent intervals for the convenience of foot-passengers. Nearly every house, shop, and public building has its verandah, which slopes down over the pavement, and forms a grateful protection from the heavy rains in winter, and the scorching sun Melbourne. 5 in summer. The sky-line of the streets is not generally of the most uniform nature \ and this is the first thing that strikes the stranger as at all peculiar. He finds spacious and lofty ware- houses standing side by side with one-storied workshops ; grand stone buildings hobnobbing with low wooden shanties ; and stately-looking churches in close proximity to timber yards, tinsmiths' shops, and small public-houses. All these incon- gruities, however, are fast disappearing, the temporary wooden buildings being weeded out by degrees, and substantial structures erected in their stead. Collins Street is the most regularly built of the thoroughfares of Melbourne. The west end of it contains the principal hotels, banks, and insurance offices ; the eastern portion being devoted to the residences of clergymen, doctors, and musical professors. At the intersection of Russel and Collins Streets stands the monument erected to Burke and Wills, the famous explorers of the Australian continent. It consists of two large bronze figures of the travellers, mounted on a pedestal of the same material, round the base of which appear four bas-reliefs illus- trating the various episodes in the ill-fated expedition to the interior an expedition which started from Melbourne in 1860 with great eclat and flourish of trumpets, but which ended in the death of Burke and his companion amid the wilds of the desert. Near this monument is the Independent Church, a large showy building of variegated brick, with a massive spire and belfry. Over the way, in strong contrast to it, stood at this time the Presbyterian Church, a plain and unpretentious structure. It did not seem, however, to have exactly suited Presbyterian wants, as it has since been demolished, and a larger and more costly place of worship erected. The site is one of the finest in all Melbourne, and the lofty tapering spire forms a noble feature in the sky-line. Further down Collins Street is the new Town Hall, a stately edifice built in a mixed classical style, with a lofty tower on the south-western extremity, and two broad flights of steps leading up to the principal entrance. The great, hall has a large seating capacity, and is most sumptuously decorated. A spacious balcony runs round the entire building, while over the commodious orchestra has been erected a huge and highly-ornamented organ. In Bourke Street are situated the principal markets and places of amusement. Here are the temples of the drama the Theatre Royal and the Prince of Wales' Opera House. Here too is the Eastern Market, or " Paddy's Market," as it is Kennedy s Colonial Travel. familiarly called, where are displayed fruits and flowers of every kind, and the finest possible vegetables. The cauliflowers of Melbourne, in size and flavour, are truly remarkable, and would open the eyes of a Cockney housewife. In Bourke Street the miscellaneous business of the city is transacted, with a strange jumble of nationalities, as shown by the business signs and placards over the doors and windows. Messrs Levi and Abraham will be happy to sell you all descriptions of cigars, pipes, and tobacco ; Sprachen and Herz can supply unlimited varieties of fancy goods and colonial-made jewellery ; Moosoo, Adolphus, & Co. possess an excellent stock of furniture and "French polish ;" and Ah Ching Ah Wing & Chum Foo have on hand a large assortment of tea, opium, and Chinese curio- sities. Bourke Street is also the centre of a line of omnibuses, which convey you to any part of the city for threepence. They are conducted on a very economic principle, the driver having control over the back door by a long leather strap, and the pas- sengers poking their fare through a little hole in the front. These vehicles are supplemented by a multitude of omnibus cabs, plying at the same rates, and forming no inconsiderable item in the street traffic, which is principally made up of these conveyances and a miscellaneous collection of buggies, railway carts, produce vans, and country coaches. One must not forget, however, the irrepressible butcher boy, who rushes on horseback through this heavy stream of traffic with all the vagaries of a comet amidst the solar system, the snorting steed dashing up the street with a life-and-death appearance, its eyes flashing and its tail streaming ; while all the interest involved is perhaps a paltry beefsteak or a solitary leg of mutton. The chief building in Bourke Street is the General Post- Office, which, though smaller and less ornamental than the Town Hall, is yet a commodious and imposing pile. Like the latter building, it is surmounted with a large tower, from which the progress of the English mail is signalled to the citizens every month by means of flags. The departure of the mail is always an occasion of great excitement at the Post-Office. Half an hour before the closing time you see a stream of people trickling in with their letters, and leisurely depositing them in the large windows. At a quarter to ten there is a growing anxiety to jostle, while at five minutes to the hour there is a decided rush office boys running with bundles of despatches, and anxious persons feverishly clutching their " home " letters. The cry Melbourne. is " still they come," when Borne ! goes the first stroke of ten, and round the corner fly procrastinating individuals in cabs ; while many tumble nervously out of omnibuses, and rush to join the gathering throng. Borne ! the crowd tightens up, the Stamp Office is besieged, and a maelstrom of packages is dis- charged into the box. Bim, borne ! the portico is now crowded with people hustling, pushing, and squeezing in at all corners, frantically waving newspapers and bundles of letters, and work- ing themselves fiercely to the window, where some individuals have inextricably wedged themselves in. Bim, borne ! the last stroke of ten, and down goes the shutter with an unmistak- able bang. During our three months' stay in Melbourne, we frequently visited the Chinese quarter in Little Bourke Street, where the Celestials, with excusable clannishness, have gathered them- selves together. Their shops and houses form a large portion of this thoroughfare. The buildings are all after the European manner, but the interior bears. strong evidences of Chinese occupation. At nearly every door you see " John " lounging and smoking with the listlessness characteristic of the race, or grinning feebly at you as you pass. Numbers of his country- men are lolling about inside, playing at the national lottery of "fan-tan," or holding a desultory conversation with a stray customer, who sips out of a small cup the tea invariably placed on the counter of all Chinese shops, but which being pure and unsweetened is not very palatable to the European. One cannot fail to observe the very diversified business done in the Chinese quarter; for among other buildings we can easily see the gambling saloon, with its group of avaricious speculators, and its windowful of lucky and other papers ; the tea ware- house, crowded to the door with chests and boxes ; the opium shop, with its noxious drugs and vacant-eyed customers ; and the lottery shop, presided over by a priestly hoary-haired Chinaman all these establishments doing an apparently good business. Now and then, however, the gambling haunts are invaded by the police, and at these times it is no uncommon thing to see a gang of handcuffed Chinamen, to the number of twenty or thirty, escorted by constables to the Police Court, where, amidst a crowd of sympathising friends, the Celestials pay their fines, or more frequently endure their imprisonments. The lower order of Chinamen gain a livelihood as pedlars or itinerant merchants, having their goods slung on both ends of a long bamboo, by means of which they are able to carry on their 8 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. shoulder great weights without much apparent exertion. They are invariably to be seen at the back-doors of houses, chatting with the servant-girls, and trying to dispose of their wares at a good profit. Many of them act as chiffonniers, and scrape a subsistence out of dust-heaps and rubbish the Chinaman being proverbial for making a living where a European would starve. One evening we went to the Chinese theatre a temporary exhibition, held in a booth erected at the head of Little Bourke Street. The tent was surrounded by a noisy crowd of street arabs and loafers, who were eaves-dropping through the rents of the canvas, and yelling out their general opinion of the per- formance. Paying our shilling we entered, and saw an audience of eighty or ninety Chinamen. We took our stand beside one of them, asking him to explain the " plot ; " but he declined the task, as he had left China when he was only " one moon old." The stage was like an inverted proscenium the " foot-lights " being placed about twelve inches above the heads of the actors, who raised their faces towards the lamps when any strong emotion had to be exhibited. Behind the performers, at the back of the stage, sat the orchestra, numbering two, who played Celestial airs on a monotonous gong and a wearisome one- stringed fiddle. The entrance of any great character was the occasion of a furious burst of sound, which subsided when he commenced to speak, but was immediately resumed upon the conclusion qa sentence. No special scenery graced the stage, the dramatis persona appearing from behind two tapestried curtains. The drama was relieved by an incident assuredly not in the programme. A shower of missiles, thrown by the rabble outside, came flying through the roof of the tent, and alighted on the heads of an emperor and chief mandarin, who were instantly escorted from the stage amid the shrill jabbering of the audience, the play methodically proceeding as before. Imagine the effect upon an English audience of seeing their favourite Hamlet or popular Macbeth carried off at the wings dangerously wounded by bricks hurled in at the skylights ! During our journey through the city we came frequently into contact with the Melbourne cabmen, who are even more original and worthy of notice than their brethren in the old country. Most of them are waifs from the diggings, unsuccessful during the great alluvial rushes, or, if successful, at least unfortunate in not keeping a judicious hold of their savings. They have adopted this line of business as an instantaneous means of Melbourne. livelihood, and some have got the length of comparative inde- pendence, possessing their own horse and vehicle, with a few pounds to their credit at the bank. In outward appearance the Melbourne cabman is a respectable fellow. On entering his cab or Albert car, you are soon put at your ease, as he talks with you in a familiar and friendly manner that is quite assuring. "Ah! you admire them houses, do you, sir? well, what would you think of seeing that all trees, sir all bush, nothing but tents that's what I saw when I came out here twenty years ago this very month. I left the missus an' young folks at home, an' sailed for the diggings in '52 yes, sir, an' I made some thousands of pounds up at Ballarat. I wouldn't like to tell you how much I made indeed, I wouldn't. I took the gold out in bucketfuls didn't sift the gold from the dirt ; that was too much trouble, sir. I took the dirt from the gold. Yes, I built a hotel up there, and the two rooms of it were crammed from week's end to week's end. My word ! the coin 1 put away then ! But I was a fool in those days, sir. I was too free, too generous, too open-hearted spent all my earnings among my chums. I took to the drink, sir, bad ; an' the money went as fast as it came. Then I lost the run of my luck, an' had to sell out an' come down to Melbourne a cab-driving. You'll be wondering, sir, at seeing me holding the reins, but a chap's got to be humble in this world sometimes, you know. It's my own horse an' cab, sir ; all my own property ; but it don't make up for the good old times, the jolly 'old times. Get off at this corner, sir? all right, sir threepence, sir good- day, sir." And away he goes in his Albert car, a vehicle which we shall recollect for some time by reason of an accident that occurred one evening while we were driving down Bourke Street. We had reached a very steep portion of the road, which was slippery owing to recent rains, when the horse, after a few preliminary stumbles, fell to the ground, the shafts flying into fragments and the front-seat passengers rolling out over the unfortunate animal ; while a number of lady-passengers had to be taken down by a ladder from the back part of the vehicle amidst the Sympathies of the large crowd which had gathered round. One of the greatest treats we enjoyed was in visiting the beautiful parks and reserves set apart for the benefit and re- creation of the citizens. The Botanical and Fitzroy Gardens are the two principal resorts, the former containing an extensive variety of tropical and British plants, growing side by side in io Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. the open air ; and the latter, which costs the Government ^1200 per year, laid out in beautiful walks, and ornamented with a large number of classical statues, that meet you unex- pectedly at every turn. The Treasury Gardens, occupying a beautiful slope at the back of the Government buildings, cost ^500 annually, the original sum expended being ^3000, which included the deposit of 10,000 loads of soil. There are also the Flagstaff, Horticultural, and Friendly Society's Gardens ; the Acclimatisation Society's Gardens, the South Park, and the Military Reserve all distributed equally over the town, and open free to visitors daily. The grounds of the Mel- bourne Cemetery are also a favourite resort on Sunday afternoons, and are well worthy of a stranger's visit, if only to see the Jewish and Chinese divisions, which are full of interest. The principal tombstone in the cemetery is that erected to Burke and Wills, a striking contrast to their elegant monument in Collins Street, as it consists solely of an immense mass of uncut granite, symbolical of the great unfinished work of their lives. Melbourne is a city popularly supposed to be wholly given over to Wool and Gold. But material prosperity does not shut out a due recognition of the Arts and Sciences. There is a fine University, with a grant of ^9000 every year from Government. There is also a Public Library in Swanston Street a noble building containing 80,000 volumes. It consists of one long, spacious, and well-lighted chamber surrounded by numerous recesses. You sit down, look over the catalogue, and then pick out your book from the surrounding shelves. The library is free, and open from ten in the morning to ten at night. Any one can make use of it. No matter how poor or shabbily dressed a man may be, he can come in as boldly as any student or pro- fessor. The workmen from the adjoining shops and factories make good use of the library during meal-hours. While on the subject of reading, I may state that the Press is well represented in Melbourne, there being three daily papers, one evening journal, several " weeklies," a Melbourne Punch, two illustrated papers, and numerous class-periodicals. We were privileged one night to hear a debate in the Legis- lative Assembly, a most ample hall, well seated and excellently lighted. The stranger's gallery was filled mostly, as far as we could tell, with working men, who were no doubt interested in the re-arrangement of tariffs, the matter under discussion. Some folks think the heavy dues on the Victorian ports are suicidal,. Melbourne. 1 1 and that the colony is being ruined ; others uphold that Pro- tection is nursing the young and feeble industries of the country. The arguments pro and con would not be very interesting to the general reader, and are similar to those that can be heard in all countries where free-trade is not the law of the land. It would seem that protection is necessary for the growth of a new colony, and the only difficulty is in determining the point at which the tariffs can be dispensed with, when the defences can be thrown away, and the community is able to meet the full tide of the world's commerce. The wordy fight in the Assembly waxed loud and long. One or two offensive personal remarks were made, but apologised for, while the Speaker's voice occasionally rolled through the building with a call of" Order, order." Two friends of ours, who had recently been elected to Parliament, and could now write M. L. A. after their names, made telling speeches. Assurance was given us afterwards that this was a stirring debate. Nominally there are no poorhouses or workhouses in Mel- bourne. But there are kindred institutions. There is a Benevolent Asylum and an Orphan Asylum. Two import- ant buildings are the Melbourne and Alfred Hospitals, the latter a beautiful structure on the St Kilda Road, commemorating the visit of the Duke of Edinburgh to the Australian colonies. The Blind Asylum is another important institution, where the inmates, in addition to useful trades, are taught vocal and instrumental music, which the committee have utilised to the raising of their funds by the occasional giving of concerts in the Town Hall. Of equal interest is the Deaf and Dumb Institution, where the scholars are taught by an elaborate system of signs grafted on their usual alphabet. This is a decided improvement ; for while there is animation and expres- siveness in the gestures, there is increased quickness in the conversation. As might be supposed, the faculty of the pupils for mimicry is very great, and the superintendent cultivates their pantomimic ability for their mutual amusement. His- torical tableaux are sometimes got up for the gratification of visitors, the scholars being chosen according to their real or fancied resemblance to Biblical or other characters. We were not favoured upon our visit with any special exhibition, the superintendent lamenting that he could not show us the spectacle of" Abraham offering up Isaac ; " for though Isaac was still in the institution, yet Abraham had gone to Tasmania to see his friends. 12 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. One day we visited the great penal establishment at Pent- ridge, a few miles from Melbourne. This famous prison or " Stockade," to which we were kindly invited by the Presby- terian chaplain, contained 600 convicts. Inside we found the prisoners alphabetically arranged, A, B, and C dividing them into .various stages of wickedness. In one yard we saw a com- pany of convicts being searched seriatim, each individual in turn throwing up his hands in quite a formal manner, the examination itself being of necessity very ceremonious and cursory ; and in another, a number of prisoners were building a high wall, which task must have gone somewhat against their feelings. One of the workmen happened to jostle us in passing, and we were agreeably surprised to hear that he was one of the most notorious Victorian bushrangers, one who had kept whole districts in mortal terror for months on end. Some other worthies were also pointed out who were loaded with various degrees of infamy, and looked cool, unconcerned, and utterly commonplace. We were next shown over a series of work- shops, where the usual everyday trades were being pursued. In one room a party of thirty men were making boots and shoes, laughing and talking as merrily to each other as if they expected the leaving-off bell to sound next minute, and were hoping to spend a pleasant evening with their friends at the theatre. These men were guilty principally of forgery and embezzlement, and had finely-formed heads, with uniformly intelligent faces. In an adjoining workshop some more men of a similar class were busy upon soldiers' uniforms and cloth- ing of all kinds, the materials being handed to them by the foreman through a heavily-grated window. Our guide now took us to have a peep at the cells, telling us, however, that our view of the Stockade would be somewhat limited, as the whole of the establishment was in a dreadful state of anxiety and nervous- ness, owing to the attempt of one of the prisoners the previous afternoon to murder the Inspector-General, who was severely wounded. While passing through the first corridor, we heard a combined noise of scuffling and yells, and casting a sidelong glance at an open cell door we saw the murderous prisoner struggling in the arms of two warders. Hurriedly passing on, we came to the centre hall of the building, from which radiated long rows of cells. The prisoners seemed rather well cared for ; not a few of the cells were supplied with books, and some of them had their walls painted a delicate green for the comfort of inmates with weak eyes. Before leaving this department, we Melbourne. \ 3. were locked up for a minute or so into that dreadful horror, " the Dark Cell," which is a perfectly sound-tight hole, any shout or yell being carried away up through the roof by a long iron pipe. A very little of this goes a long way with a refractory prisoner. While in this building we were told numerous stories of the attempts of convicts to escape. One of the latest failures in that line was that of three men who for three days secreted themselves under the zinc covering of the roof. The prisoners were discovered almost 1 dead from the extreme heat, it being then the middle of summer, and the zinc roof fully exposed to the fierce rays of the sun. The last sight of interest was the violent criminals' exercise yard, a small circular building divided into grated compart- ments, with a raised tower in the centre, from which an observant warder overlooked his charge. The prisoners, who were heavily ironed, slouched backwards and fonvards like caged wild animals. We were specially struck by the appear- ance of two of them one a middle-aged Chinaman, and the other a youthful bushranger of some seventeen summers. The former had a piteous look about him that raised a striking amount of sentiment in his favour, till we learnt his crimes and his furious misconduct in the prison. The cool manner in which his misdeeds were narrated while he stood looking at us from a distance of less than three feet made us feel as if we were present at an interesting waxwork exhibition, rather than gazing at an animated being like ourselves. The young highwayman, on the other hand, had an aggravated hang-dog look that would have branded him as dangerous amongst a crowd of criminals. While in his cell he had slightly misconducted himself, having playfully pelted the prison officers with his rations of bread, and humorously kicked his soup-cans about the premises with a vast amount of swearing and insubordinate behaviour. We had next a look at two halls where choirs were practising. In one place a group of sturdy Wesleyan felons were vigorously engaged over a hymn ; and in another, up in a gallery, Episco- palian convicts harmoniously rendering " Hark the herald angels sing," while a man in a canvas coat, with P.A.D. on the back of it, accompanied on a harmonium. This concluded our experience in the gaol. As the cold weather had just set in when we arrived at Mel- bourne, we had twelve weeks' experience of an Australian winter, which turned out to be a total failure as far as inclem- ency was concerned, the bright and sunny days far out-number- 14 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. ing the disagreeable and rainy. The weather was genial and bracing, but never very cold, with a sky generally cloudless and transparent, though sometimes covered with a network of light, fleecy, feathery clouds in every variety of delicate pattern and form. Now and then there appeared light " mackerel " clouds, " downy feathers," and " horse tails," as they are called, that seemed to be switching the heavens to a most delicate blue. There was a sunny sparkle in the air that proved in the highest degree exhilarating. One seemed to be breathing brilliance inhaling aerial champagne. On fine afternoons we visited successively the principal suburbs Brighton and St Kilda, the fashionable sea-side resorts ; Williamstown and Sandridge, the bustling shipping-ports; Kew and Brunswick, the quiet and rural ; Prahran, Richmond, and Emerald Hill, the centres of busy trade a thriving, handsome series of towns, nearly all merged into the city. The people of Melbourne are bustling and energetic. Business is conducted with British pluck and perseverance, spiced with Yankee enterprise. There is still perceptible a flavour of the prodigal generosity of the early "digging days." The folks are very warm-hearted, off-hand, and not troubled with burdensome conventionalities. Society, as represented by the Hat, is of a very free-and-easy nature. A person can and does wear whatever he pleases. In the street you see every description of hat high, low, straw, felt, white, black, and beaver all shapes and sizes some with broad brims, some with narrow brims, and some with no brims at all ; while many have lofty crowns that tower upwards to the height of eighteen inches. Yet, with all this, the fashions hold as important a place in Melbourne as in any capital of Europe, which is incontestably shown by the splendid appearance pre- sented upon a fine afternoon when the aristocracy and elite of the city promenade the northern side of Collins Street, " doing the block," as it is colonially called. The inhabitants are very jealous of the good name of their town, and on all occasions urge the new-comer to express his opinion of it. The vital question, " How do you like Mel- bourne ? " was poured into our ears day and night. We had it at our meals ; we encountered it in our walks ; and had volleys of it at evening parties. We were asked the fatal opinion in crowded railway carriages ; questioned by acquaint- ances who cropped up in omnibuses ; saluted with the query by " companions of the bath ; " and addressed in all the varied circumstances in which it is possible to meet your fellow-man. Melbourne. 1 5 11 You like Melbourne, do you ? " "Yes." " Much ? " " Very much." " But are you bearing very particularly in mind that the city is only thirty years old ? " " Well, one is apt to forget that, but it's wonderful when you think of it." " Wonderful ? why, it's astonishing." " Undoubtedly." " Do you think Melbourne is superior to Sydney ? " " Oh, we haven't been there yet." " No ? well, you won't like it nearly half so well it's a fearfully slow place a kind of dead-and-alive-town." " Indeed ? " " That is, compared with Melbourne ! " Luckily we could give a favourable answer to their inquiries, for we admired their fine city almost as much as the residents them- selves. In Melbourne, at this time, wages were high, and the eight- hours' system almost universal. We heard occasionally that the working-classes were too fond of holiday-making. But they are frugal and industrious. This is proven by the great number of building-societies which have sprung up. Chief among these is the " Victorian Permanent," which is gigantic in its operations. It was invented and founded by an Edin- burgh man, who is now the head and life of the society. Twenty years ago, he came to the colony a working man, and lately was a Minister of the Crown. Our entertainment of Scottish Song ran for fifty-two nights on our first visit to Melbourne. The kindness we received in private was great, and was the beginning of that warm-hearted friendship which we have experienced all round the world. CHAPTER II. BALLARAT DOWN A GOLD MINE GEELONG A HOT-WIND DAY. BALLARAT, the second city in the colony of Victoria, and the principal gold-field of Australia, is reached from Melbourne by one of the Government railways. The line strikes south-west- ward to Geelong, a journey of some 45 miles ; then it shoots away north-westward to Ballarat, about 50 miles further. You travel in all abeut 100 miles, for which the fare is -i, 45. first class, and i6s. second class ; there is no third class. The rail- way is very substantially built, but constructed, as it seemed to us, with too much consideration for posterity large stone buildings serving as stations for decidedly rural districts, where passengers are few. We found the journey to Geelong rather , uninteresting ; nothing but one long grassy plain, with only an .occasional house to break the view. From Geelong to Balla- rat, we sped through timbered country, the line bounded on both sides by continuous fences. The trees, too, were all pro- vokingly alike all members of the famous gum-tree family. Once the train burst into a clearing, where for a few moments we could see a small hut with blue curling smoke from a wood fire logs heaped around children playing about a bare- armed man resting his axe to look at the passing train a son of the bush on horseback a bright open space, shrouded swiftly by the same forests as before. As we approached Ballarat the country became clearer, the thickly-wooded dis- tricts disappearing, and agricultural land taking its place. Still nearer Ballarat the farming in turn gave place to mining, the country gaining a romantic interest to us by the gradual appear- ance of the celebrated gold-field. Ballarat, as we saw it from the railway, was not peculiarly beautiful or striking. We certainly felt that we were looking at a large city, but it was a picture with a very sandy and desolate framework that is, as regards its immediate neigh- bourhood, the country round being, on the contrary, hilly, green, and fertile, with lofty mountains standing out boldly at Ballarat. 1 7 various points of the landscape. Ballarat itself lies at an eleva- tion of 1437 feet above the sea, and has quite a different temperature from that of Melbourne, the atmosphere being much cooler and more bracing. The city is divided by the Yarrowee Creek into Ballarat East and Ballarat West, each honoured with a Mayor and a distinct set of Councillors, besides having between them three town halls and various other muni- cipal buildings. The population is 47,000. A closer view of the city raised it many degrees in our estimation. We found it possessed of fine streets, ornamental buildings, extensive shops, and a novel characteristic in the form of beautifully shaded walks. Sturt Street is surprisingly wide and commo- dious, with enclosed plantations, which run down the centre of the thoroughfare, and give it an indescribably soothing appear- ance. Though most of the streets are well built and regular, yet many of them are narrow, tortuous, and uneven. The irregular thoroughfares are those which were formed along the line of a gold "lead" or "claim" in the palmy old days when every man erected his house without any aim but his own conveni- ence. You commonly find that the worst constructed thorough- fares are the historic ground of nuggets and memorable "finds." The principal buildings in Sturt Street are the ornamental and commanding Town Hall ; the Theatre Royal ; the Mechanics' Institute a building with an elegant frontage, a commodious hall, and a fine library; the Fire Brigade Station; the Offices of the Ballarat Courier and Star; the list being swelled by a number of banks, each rivalling the other in magnificence of architecture. Among other public buildings are the Hospital, Orphan Asylum, Benevolent Asylum, and a Free Public Library. One day we made a journey to the southern side of the town. Here was a wilderness of gold "claims," a sight not to be forgotten. At every step we were met by innumerable heaps of sand surmounted by windlasses all around were mud- holes, sickly yellow pools, mounds of fresh-turned earth and heaps of hard, grass-grown sand, with here and there a head momentarily visible, or the point of a pick or shovel the whole scene a universal mutilation of nature. Here were miners busy shovelling up sifted refuse or " tailings " others rocking a gold-cradle or " sieve " Chinamen, too, engaged in a search after microscope gold, and some in their eagerness sweeping the very dust of the tracts an act, by the way, forbidden in the streets of the town under a heavy penalty. If ever a city was paved with gold it is Ballarat. Away up on a B 1 8 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. hillside roared a quartz-crushing battery, of some sixty "stamp- ers," kept continually busy by the mines in the neighbourhood. This Black Hill, as it is called, is the scene of extensive operations. It is now stripped of all vegetation, and has a very desolate appearance. It has been raked fore and aft, sliced down the middle like a gigantic cheese, tunnelled, blasted, and scraped in every conceivable direction. A row of shafts, too, have been sunk on the bottom of this artificial valley, the sides of which stand up white and precipitous, broken here and there by the dark mouth of a tunnel a ready-made cave for some future colonial hermit. Upon the other side of the town are situated the more pre- tentious mines, the road from Ballarat to Sebastopol, an important suburb, being thickly dotted with smoking chim- neys, puffing engines, fields of " tailings," lines of tramways, managers' offices, sheds, huts, puddling machines, and "poppet- heads " (the framework erected over the mouth of a mine). Upon the invitation of an inspector of the " Band of Hope " claim, we one day went down that famous alluvial mine, and viewed the underground workings. We put on a complete miner's dress, composed of a greasy canvas cap, a heavy, coarse flannel shirt, a dirt-bespattered blouse, thick worsted stockings, and voluminous, lengthy pants, the surplus of which we stuffed into a pair of knee-high Wellington boots. Equipped with candles, we went down in the iron cage, the sides of the shaft seeming to fly upwards, and an ancient humid odour asserting itself more definitely every moment. The silence was unbroken save by the occasional scraping of the cage upon the shaft, and the dull throbbing of the engine distinctly felt in the vibration of the cage. 1 was strangely tempted to look upwards towards the mouth of the shaft, but the backward motion of my head aroused my companion, a stalwart miner. " For goodness' sake, sir, don't look up keep your head well in why, only the other day a man had his brains scooped out agin' the shaft doin' the same thing; an' I know a man that had an eye knocked out by a bit of stuff falling in his face : besides a chum o' mine that had a leg completely jammed to a jelly atween the woodwork and the cage all of them doing exactly the very same thing ; so keep your head well in, just inside o' my arm, sir !" Soon a yellow glimmer of candle- light glistened along the damp sides of the shaft. We came to the 500 feet level, where we stepped off, the cage going down- wards a hundred and odd feet more. A miner was busily Ballarat. 19 arranging trucks upon a miniature railway that stretched away into the darkness. A grey horse stood near, looking sleek and com- fortable enough, waiting to draw the empty trucks back to the various "drives." Our guide ordered us to light our candles, and jump each of us into one of the empty trucks. The horse was hitched on, and away went the little waggons with deafen- ing clatter. After what appeared an interminable ride, we arrived at a distant part of the workings. Our exploration now led us along one of the narrow drives, which was heavily timbered, large beams on either side supporting massive cross- pieces overhead. The ground was one mass of thick slimy mud, deep in water, that made every step a struggle and a splash. We shortly came to a " jump up," where a small lift communicated with a higher level of the workings ; but we found there had been an accident, the rope of the cage having broke, to the disablement of an Irishman, who hopped up to us rubbing a limb, and trying to look invalided, though it chanced he was more frightened than hurt. As the ordinary means of communication had thus failed us, we were reduced to climb- ing up an iron ladder about eighty feet high, placed in a small shaft about two feet wide, just large enough to admit the body. The ascent was no mean trial of the nerves, as the iron rounds of the ladder were wet and slippery, giving very slight hold cither for hands or feet. I climbed with my left hand, holding the candle in my right, the melting grease blistering my fingers, and an unlucky stream of water latterly spouting out from the side of the shaft and extinguishing the light. The water came spluttering into our faces, into our ears, and down the back of our necks, till we were all left ' in total darkness. Be- hold us, however, safe at the top of the ladder amidst a group of miners representing various nationalities, the majority of them Cornishmen, with a few Scotchmen and a number of Irishmen. Following our guide the inspector, we climbed up rough embankments of stone and earth, knocking our heads on beams and extinguishing our candles, sliding down rough inclines to the abrasion of knees and elbows, squeezing through small holes in the solid rock, and emerging at last into a large open space, where the principal mining operations were being carried on. The place seemed like an immense forest, the feeble candlelight showing us immense upright timbers supporting the lofty roof, the beams successively growing fainter and fainter in perspective till they were lost in the darkness. Here and there a light twinkled. Approaching a spot where the blows of a pick 2O Kennedy s Colonial Travel. could be heard, we saw a number of men busy upon a " facing," the technical name for a wall of earth or a ledge of rock in process of detachment or excavation. Upon our expressing a strong desire to see gold in its natural state, the miners com- menced peering about in all directions, one of them suddenly exclaiming that he had found a speck. It turned out to be many times smaller than a pin-head, and we had to flatten our nose in the dirt, with an eye in the candle, before we could say we saw it. As a rule, the men scarcely ever see the " colour of gold." The earth has to be " washed " in large quantities to make it pay. A ton of dirt will yield about five or six pennyweights of gold. Retracing our steps, the inspector took us to the shaft by a different route. In some of the low -roofed galleries we sustained severe blows upon the head, making us grope along in an awkward posture, though we almost exploded with laughter when we once found our- selves bent double in a vault forty feet high. The last ordeal we had to undergo was the descent of a somewhat deep hole by means of a ladder, the top round of which did not reach within a foot of the opening. The process of lying down flat on your face, and using the legs as feelers, was accomplished by us with some internal reluctance ; but this experience happily ended . our troubles. We reached the main shaft, and in a minute or two were breathing the fresh air, which was doubly grate- ful after two hours' experience of a warm, close atmosphere. This mine is the most important in or near Ballarat. Its history has been one of almost unvarying success, with occasional extraordinary returns- notably in the year 1867, when the mine yielded ^60,000 in forty-four days a memorable seven weeks' work. The other large alluvial companies such as the Koh-i- noor, the Albion, the Great Extended, the Prince of Wales, and Sir William Don have not been far behind the Band of Hope in respect of good fortune. As for quartz-mining, it is not nearly so general about Ballarat as in other districts ; but it has had its share of success, one particular company crushing in nine months 12,270 tons of quartz, which yielded ^12,500 worth of gold. Ballarat has been famous also for its nuggets, among the principal being the Nil Desperandum, sold for ^1050 ; the Lady Hotham, which realised ^3000 ; an anonymous nugget, valued at ^5532 ; the list coming to a climax with the famous Bakery Hill nugget, which was sold for ^9325. These form the groundwork for many a fireside story ; and, as visitors, we had our share of reminiscences. The city abounds also in famous and Ballarat. 2 1 characteristic personages. Men walk its streets fumbling empty pockets, who a few years back were possessed of a fortune ; men ride in carriages, and occupy imposing mansions, who came almost beggars to the diggings. Every turn of the wheel of fortune is represented. One day we saw a poor-looking old man posting placards in the street. His face was spotted with paste, and his clothes were worn and threadbare. He was once rich, and had a fine hotel ; made money during the gold rushes, and was elected mayor of a town not far from Ballarat; failed either in business or gold-mining, and gradually sunk to his present humble position. During a talk we had with him \ve found him to be a philosopher, "not above his work," as he often said, while his conversation was plentifully sprinkled with moral precepts and maxims, not strikingly original, but having a certain charm when coming from a bill-sticker. Not far up the same street we saw a homely-looking man, dressed in plain clothes, with a red-spotted handkerchief hanging out of his pocket. He had the look of a decent farmer, was slightly bent, and leant upon a thick stick. This was the richest man in Ballarat, called "Jock" from his nationality, by the universal voice of the neighbourhood. He is fabulously wealthy, and his fortune seems mythical. We inquired about his ^wealth from various individuals; but, as each successive statement grew more and more improbable, we at length desisted, from fear of convicting some unhappy person in an evident falsehood. But the fact remains that "Jock" is rich, and owns, or once owned, a large share in some important mines. Originally an Edinburgh butcher, he came out to Victoria comparatively poor, and, from what we could learn, seems to have acquired wealth by always luckily possessing land that some person else urgently wanted. His life seems to have been a continual "buying-out." On one occasion he had a small farm, which a number of speculators wished to acquire for mining purposes. They successively offered him for the property ^5000 ; 10,000 ^20,000, till finally the master of the situation closed with the magnificent sum of ^30,000. But the speculators had not yet got rid of him. He required the money to be counted out, by a person whom they should appoint, in his own presence and in his own house, and that not merely in notes, which he religiously avoided, but in sterling gold ! I often think that " Jock " and the unfor- tunate cashier must have had dull times of it, and sometimes wonder to myself which was most taxed the arithmetic of the one or the patience of the other. 22 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. One morning we brushed shoulders with a Ballarat hero. He was a man seemingly about fifty years of age, dressed in a light grey coat. His right sleeve hung dangling and empty ; he was bereft of an arm. This man was Lalor, the Bruce of Ballarat the Bannockburn being the eventful Eureka Stockade Fight, which took place near the town in the year 1854, when the miners rose in rebellion against the authorities, who had oppressed them with what was considered very harsh restrictions. The license fee of 305. per month which every individual miner had to pay was certainly the sorest point, the obnoxious con- duct of the collecting officials adding, as was thought, insult to injury. The miners, after many attempts to gain satisfaction by reasonable means, determined at last to stand up for them- selves. They erected a stockade about one acre in extent, and laid in a good supply of arms and stores. This for- tification, which was very slight, was attacked by a body of soldiers numbering about 276, including cavalry, and after a short resistance, during which Lalor lost his arm by a musket bullet, the miners were completely dispersed, about forty of them having been shot down ' in the stockade. During the engagement an officer and three privates were killed. Their graves^ are to be seen in Ballarat Cemetery. In the same burial-ground, and not far from the soldiers' graves, lie the bodies of the miners in one common resting-place, marked by a handsome monument. This famous conflict had a great influence in alleviating the condition of the mining population, and the memories of those who fell in the Eureka Stockade- are fondly cherished to this day in all parts of the colony. If all the accounts we heard were true, times must have been very lively in Ballarat some twenty years ago. It would require pages to tell the tales of adventure, discovery, dissipa- tion, foolhardiness, riot, and bloodshed that we heard on all hands and from all classes of people. In those days the digger was one of the most independent, jolly, and extravagant of men. He would think nothing of lighting his pipe with a pound note would go with his fellow-diggers and spend ^100 in a bar-room at a single sitting would throw pellets of gold at the performers in a concert room or the actors on a stage would bathe his feet in a tubful of champagne, though the sly publican would give him an inferior quality of wine would go into a china shop and ask the valuation of the crockery previous to a wholesale demolition, right and left, with a stout cudgel ; and, in short, would do every conceivable eccentric act that a /J t '**&'; Ballarat. 23 man inflamed with liquor and surfeited with money could possibly commit. Of course there were honourable exceptions, many of the diggers being sober, well-behaved men, who made fortunes more or less quickly, and who either settled down in the colony, or, as hundreds did, returned to the old country. Many however never left Victoria, as is proved by the number of people you meet who have been about Ballarat for " the last twenty years." This is a magical phrase, and almost invariably stamps a man as having been at the diggings. But enough of this. We have been looking at Ballarat so long in a mining point of view, that we have quite forgotten its rural and agricultural charms, which are not by any means few, though gold-mining doubtless invaded many a sylvan scene. We will not forget for some time a charming pic-nic at Kirk's Dam, arranged for our special delight by a worthy Scotsman, town-councillor, and veritable stranger's friend. Kirk's Dam is a delicious nook, a forest-encircled sheet of water, artificially constructed for the supply of the city. On the grassy banks of the lake we had an elegant lunch. This was startingly diversi- fied by the capture of a poisonous black snake, about three feet long, which one of the company triumphantly brought along on the end of a stick. The reptile was half dead, and writhed slowly ; but the death-blow was quickly given, and it was hung over a fence for the general inspection, many of the old colonials in our party never having seen a snake. A portion of the day was spent rambling about the woods amid warm, brilliant sunshine, which gave the foliage a rich, transparent, green hue, the unclouded sky lending a deep blue colour to the water, which we could see through occasional breaks in the vegetation. Returning home, we passed by way of Lake Wendouree, a small sheet of water, grown over with reeds, but cleared now and again for the accommodation of row-boats and pleasure yachts, of which there are a large number moored upon the southern side of the lake. Upon the opposite banks are the Botanical Gardens, with their verdant lawns, clean-shaven borders, and long-stretching gravel walks. One of the latter extends for the distance of a mile in a straight line the longest ornamental walk I have ever seen. For agricultural and pastoral scenery commend me to Lear- month, thirteen miles from Ballarat. It is a delightful little village of one street, and lies on the shores of Lake Learmonth. Unlike most other townships in Victoria, its soil has never been disturbed for gold, and a person could almost fancy him- 24 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. self in some fertile portion of the old country, so completely have the labours of the ploughman taken away the peculiar Australian aspect of the landscape. Nearly all the farmers in the neighbourhood are Scotchmen, and occupy as snug and happy positions in this world as any man could wish for ; and they seem aware of that too, for they grumble less than farmers generally do. For ourselves, we enjoyed the visit in a very high degree. One unhappy incident, however, marred our pleasure, when, amidst the press of numerous hospitable invita- tions, with necessarily decreasing appetite, we could not do justice to the steaming viands of a really good-hearted High- land farmer, who, I verily believe, would have sworn a feud against us for our unsocial conduct, had we not allayed his displeasure by informing him that we would be hungrier on our next visit. Geelong is a well-built, thriving, business town, with a semi- circular situation upon the shores of Corio Bay, a large inlet of Port Phillip. It has 15,000 inhabitants, and is a very equally constructed town. The streets are clean-looking, wide, and full of old-established shops, banks, offices, and warehouses. When we were in Geelong it had a good deal of bustle about it, which was totally unlooked-for by us, as we had heard so much from Melbourne and Ballarat people about its unbearable dulness. Melbourne compares itself favourably with Sydney ; and Sydney looks compassionately down south, and patronises Melbourne ; Ballarat accuses Geelong of sleepiness ; Geelong retaliates that Ballarat has seen its best days. Once upon a time Geelong was the second city in the colony, but Ballarat, with its gold discoveries, shot quickly ahead, and has kept the lead ever since. Geelong, in the old days, even aspired to be the metropolis the excellence of its harbour and the situation of the town both favouring the idea. But, in an evil hour, the railway from Melbourne to Geelong was constructed, business fled eastward, and with it disappeared all metropolitan hopes and aspirations. We regarded the accusation of dulness as a capital joke. Ha, ha ! Geelong dull ? Look at Malop Street, with its flourishing banks, insurance agencies, newspaper offices, and large hotels ; Ryrie Street, with its immense wool stores, ware- houses, fine shops, and tradesmen bustling, unpacking, loading, and sending away goods. Geelong dull ? Look at the groaning bullock-drays, fresh in from the country, piled high with bales of wool, wending their muddy, bespattered way through the Geelong. 25 streets to some of the immense stores ; see these railway carts rattling along with a similar cargo ; and look at the number of flying butchers' carts, grocers' vans, and business vehicles of all descriptions that throng the streets. Geelong dull ? a fine joke indeed ! It must be added, though, that the town is more than usually busy during November, when the wharves are lined with clipper ships loading up for the London wool sales. But Geelong does not altogether depend for its life and activity upon the wool season. It has another great season when sea-bathers, pleasure-seekers, and holiday-makers of all kinds troop in from all parts of the colony to enjoy fresh air, salt- water, society, and change. The salt-water baths are the main attraction of the place, and resemble open-air swimming baths, a portion of the water being staked-in to keep out the numerous sharks that infest the bay, and a series of dressing compart- ments hiding the enclosure from the vulgar gaze. They are a very agreeable people in Geelong, hospitable and social. Our experience showed them to be very fond of bazaars, tea-meetings, and evening parties three good things in their way; and the last of which we enjoyed very much, though we felt rather tasked upon one occasion when we had to dance in a hot crowded room, after partaking of hot tea, with the thermometer standing at 80. I think that was the figure but I am painfully certain it stood at 120 about midday. The party seemed composed of salamanders waltzing, quadrilling, reeling, and strathspeying, till the early hours of the morning, the in- tervals between the dances being filled up by a general prome- nade that filled the room with a current of air. The physical and social warmth of that evening will alike be remembered. Geelong prides itself highly upon its bay, which is really beautiful, especially upon a bright sunny day, when the sea is calm, and when the wind blows faintly, with here and there a boat or a vessel at anchor, or the white gleam of a sail standing out boldly against the dark blue of the water. Many of the inhabitants cherish the notion that their harbour very much resembles the famous Bay of Naples, the mountain of You Yangs, which lies about fifteen miles from Geelong, standing in their eyes for Mount Vesuvius. The weather we experienced in Geelong was very varied. One day it would be cool, bracing, and refreshing ; next day, extremely hot, without a breath of air ; then a strong breeze would suddenly spring up, the sky would gather thick with clouds, deluges of rain would descend, and the air would clear 26 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. itself once more. But, apart from all this, we had the first experience of that Australian abomination " the hot wind." For many years this wind was a mystery, and gave rise to all manner of theories and conjectures. It came from the north, that was certain ; but what caused its peculiar properties above all winds that ever blew ? Wise people in the early days said the wind was generated in vast interior deserts, where the hard- baked surface of the earth reflected back the fierce rays of the sun ; and though recent explorers have found no signs of a desert in the heart of the continent, yet the old theory may be so far correct, that the large extent of unopened, uncultivated country does not absorb the heat in the same quantity that it would do if properly tilled and irrigated. The correctness of this latter opinion is proved by the fact, that of recent years, as the country has been occupied, the hot winds have been less vehement. Judging from what they are now, they must have been awful visitations in bygone years. We count this hot wind as one of the unpleasant reminiscences of our visit to Geelong. It was a warm, sultry day ; the sea lay oily-looking and smooth ; the smoke from the steamboats hung heavy upon the surface of the water. Towards afternoon came a few straggling puffs of wind the sea began to ripple, the smoke to rise. Feeling our room close and oppressive, we opened the windows to inhale the approaching breeze ; but, to our surprise, the air was literally hot ! The wind came now in loud gusts the sky darkened and lowered the waves beat against the shores of the harbour the small craft flew to shelter. The dust rose in immense cones and pyramids, drifted against the doors and windows, enveloped struggling pedestrians, and swept in dense masses through the streets amid the loud moaning of the wind. We perspired profusely. Air, air, air ! We were determined to have air at all hazards. We rushed out, and were met at the door by the full force of the blast which some person has already likened to the breath of an oven. Still there is something more in the wind than heat there is an indescribable chemical property that offends the palate, sours the temper, produces headache and heaviness, and gives one the idea that the very air is decomposed. The wind blew the whole of that day and far into the night the in- tolerable heat, the whistling and groaning of the wind, almost banishing sleep. In the morning the counteracting southern breeze brought a heavy downfall of rain, the hissing sound of which was like sweetest music. The sky brightened, the healthy Geelong. 27 cool winds blew in from the sea, and we regained once more our equanimity of mind ! The country round about Geelong is agricultural. One day we went to a Scottish farmer's house some fifteen miles out. Our waggonette-driver was a curiosity in his way. He had once been in affluent circumstances, as all colonial cabmen seem to have been, and the gist of his conversation was about himself, " What do they call a man when he has got all his pockets lined with cash ? He's called rich, ain't he ? Well, I was that, and no mistake. Yes ; them's green parrots in the tree.s over there. I built houses in Geelong, and I paid seventeen pound for every thousand bricks in those dear old times, confound them. You laugh ! Fact, upon my honour ; I thought I couldn't do wrong in creating property for myself; but you must know, gentlemen, I never expected Geelong to have the come-down it has had. It's been regularly sat upon and smothered by Melbourne sat upon and smothered, I say. Wo, wo ! That tinkering off-horse worries my life out. Geelong's a good bit fallen, and there's a lot of things done that there's the railway, and there's the failure of crops, and there's look, look ! see that wild cat in the log fence ; regular scratching beauties they are ! Well, there's the crops ; for instance, just look at this field we're passing now : where's the crop there ought to be on it ? Why, some years ago, the crop would have stood as high as my head ; but the farmers here come on the ground without any capital, and, as they want to realise a bit of money as soon as they can, they grow and grow and grow, without manuring the ground, mind you, till the land gets into such a low state that it takes years to bring it up again. Oh ! Geelong's been sat upon an' smothered smothered an' sat upon, I say !" The day was overpoweringly hot, the road hilly, but we arrived at our journey's end in good time, and enjoyed the bounteous hospitality of our host. Among many good things provided was a complimentary basin of "kail broth," which I did not relish so much as might have been expected, as I was sitting close upon a roaring log-fire, the heat of which, joined with the warmth of the dish and the prevailing high temperature, caused the salamander tea-party to fade into insignificance. Dinner concluded, our friend grew eloquent on the subject of opossum- hunting. This sport is very much indulged in upon the farm, as well as that of wild-cat hunting. We longed to join a shoot- 28 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. ing party, but our enthusiasm was damped when we found that all such hunts took place by moonlight, when the opossum is most lively when, in fact, he is not asleep. The hunters track the animal to a particular tree, which they reconnoitre on all sides, till they fancy they see the dark body of the opossum standing out against the moon. Then they shoot, and either the opossum falls, or he does not. Very often he hangs dead by his prehensile tail, his ruling passion of giving trouble to the hunters being strong in death. There is more tediousness and difficulty in hunting the wild-cat, which, by a wonderful instinct of self-preservation, streaks itself out full length upon the limb of a tree, and thereby defies for a time the utmost skill and scrutiny of the practised hunter. I fancied after a while that this sport was certainly safer than fox, deer, buffalo, or lion hunting, but was unquestionably less exciting. To go tramping about the bush at midnight, grasping the cold barrel of a gun, and shooting at over-grown rats half invisible, was a luxury we would not purchase at the expense of sweet repose. Upon our return journey we stopped at the village of Ceres, and found ourselves in the midst of a jolly gathering of Scottish farmers, who were enthusiastically enjoying themselves. Their enthusiasm was genuine, and accompanied by nothing stronger than colonial wine. Old memories came crowding round them ; many volunteered songs ; one man said he would give a fabulous sum to hear such and such a song ; another said he would treat them to a piece he had not sung for the last fifteen years a proposal that was received with acclamations. A loud chorus accompanied this song, and choruses became the order of the evening. One farmer produced a large volume of Scottish music, and searched for his favourite song. Another started up, and proposed they should sing the whole book through a motion received with hearty cheers, but forgotten next minute in the vehement chorus of Scotland's social anthem, ingeniously started by some individual who wished to draw the meeting to a close. Long after we had left the house, and were driving into town, we heard coming through the open windows the strains of " Auld Lang Syne ; " but they gradually grew fainter and fainter, and were finally lost at a sharp turn of the road. CHAPTER III. SANDHURST ECHUCA BUYING COACH AND HORSES A BUSH- STORM MELBOURNE AT CHRISTMAS. FROM Geelong we went to Sandhurst, which lies 100 miles north of Melbourne. It is perhaps better known 1 by its primitive name of Bendigo. Being the centre of the most extensive quartz-mining in the colony, it has also earned the title of Quartzopolis. In Sandhurst at this time there was a general look of newness and freshly-started industry; a restless feeling pervading the inhabitants owing to the great gold-fever of a twelvemonth previously ; and,, above all, a strange out- cropping of mines in all parts of the city, an invasion of the chief streets by poppet-heads, shafts, and chimneys. Sandhurst is a sandy, arid city, large and scattered a place diluted with distance. The streets are as a rule dusty, irregular, and unevenly built ; fresh spick and span buildings are being erected every day ; weather-board houses and neat wooden cottages are going rapidly up in the best situations ; solid red brick stores and stone buildings are appearing like magic. On a hill at the back of the town stands a long symmetrical row of chimneys, marking the reef-line of themost celebrated mine in the district the Great Extended Hustlers which has now reached a depth of 650 feet, and has numerous offshoots and branch companies going by the more expressive than elegant name of " Pups." From the Extended Hustlers Hill you have a very good view of the town. Fine streets stretch away in various directions, with in many cases handsome buildings, their elegant outlines standing out strangely against a background of smoke, chemical vapours, and steam. The principal street, Pall Mall, is fronted by a cool, shady, grassy reserve, which strikes you as being tasteful and highly creditable to the city authorities. Puff! snort! creak! puff! Why, what is this? there is steam rising from behind that clump of trees ! Look- ing closer, we see in all their hideousness a poppet-head, a steam-engine, and the open mouth of a mine. This is the state 30 Kennedy's Colonial Travel.' of things prevailing all over Sandhurst the different companies sink their shafts in every payable place, beauty or ugliness never, as a matter of course entering into their calculations. Going along some of the pavements you see wooden pegs stuck in the ground marking the boundary lines of claims, and bearing the name of the mine in bold characters. Most of these claims had been pegged out during the past year, when the excitement ran high, and when some immense finds of gold were made. During this year the town was rushed by speculators, miners, and floating population generally, half the city being built dur- ing this prosperous season. In the Sandhurst district there are 710 quartz reefs. The miners number 8828, of whom 850 are Chinese; the scene of operations extending over 140 square miles of country. The population of Sandhurst itself is 22,000, a considerable advance upon late years. The city abounds in hotels, banks, and various descriptions of charitable and public institutions, such as are found in all the large Victorian cities. The chief thoroughfare, Pall Mall, has quite a metropolitan appearance. We saw it first upon a Saturday night, when the shops were brilliantly lighted, and the pavements crowded. One portion of the street was thronged with people listening to the inspiring strains of a brass band playing in the balcony of one of the large hotels. The bank windows on that same evening were great attractions for the passers-by, as the gold cakes of the different companies were being exhibited the meltings for the past week, fortnight, or month, as the case might be. The large hemispherical masses of gold were carefully guarded by wire screens, though it would have been almost impossible for any one individual to have carried away some of the larger cakes. In one window was exhibited ^18,000 worth of gold, and in another nuggets and cakes to the value of ^20,00*0. These periodical gold exhibitions are looked forward to with great interest. Most of the banks have a gold-melting room on their premises, and we were so far fortunate as to see the one in connection with the Bank of Victoria. It was a small stone room, very warm, and resembling a kitchen, the row of enclosed furnaces having the appearance of cooking-stoves. Here we saw the operator, a man with a voice extremely husky from the fierce heat of the coke fires, extracting a pot from the lurid depths of a furnace, and pouring out the gold in a clear liquid stream into the mould. Then we were conducted to the vaults, and shown the massive iron safe in which the gold cakes, nuggets, and gold Sandhurst. 3 1 dust are securely locked a heavy, t ponderous, unpickable Chubb. By the light of a candle the bank-manager brought from obscurity a large mass of gold. He staggered out from the safe, calling on us to relieve him of his load, which we did, though it almost bent each of us double as we in turn clutched hold of it. People often say they would live satisfied if they had as much gold as they could carry, but that would not be a great fortune after all. Gold is very deceptive, and we felt overweighted in holding this ^5000 worth of gold, not to speak of carrying it away, which was totally out of the question. The bank manager concluded by giving us an excellent sermon, the texts or heads of the discourse being various nuggets and parcels of gold dust, which had been brought into the bank at different times by lucky miners, who, as our friend sorrowfully said, in many cases drank the money at the nearest public-house. The principal quartz-crushing establishment of Sandhurst is Koch's Pioneer Works, an extensive building with eighty-four head of stamps, which pound away late and early. The noise in the building is deafening. In a long row stand immense perpen- dicular hammers, each weighing eight hundredweight, pul- verising away at rocks, and set in motion by a huge beam engine. Behind each stamp-head is stationed a workman, who shovels the stone into the iron boxes immediately underneath the hammer. A stream of water constantly carries away the pulverised quartz, and flows subsequently over beds of quick- silver, which seize and retain the gold. The quicksilver is then in turn separated from the gold by means of a retort, and returned once more to the quartz battery. Forming part of Koch's Pioneer Works is a pyrites-burning establishment. The pyrites is a crystallized alloy of gold, sulphur, and arsenic. The method of extracting the gold is very prejudicial to health, as the thick vapours fall condensed in flakes of arsenic upon the neighbourhood, a state of things the company have tried to obviate by erecting a more than usually lofty chimney. These furnaces exist in large numbers near the town. We lodged three weeks here at a very nice " villa," near the base of the Hustlers Hill. The building was entirely of wood, two storeys in height, and encircled with verandahs, screens, and striped awnings. These were hung round about with orna- mental flower-pots, filled with long, overflowing grass, while the front door was approached by a delightfully shady garden. Our fellow-lodgers were a sharebroker, a property-agent, and a bevy of boisterous, good-natured bank clerks. 32 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. We went to see the suburbs of Sandhurst Eagle Hawk, Epsom, and Kangaroo Flat, three alluvial diggings. It was a very hot day when we visited Eagle Hawk, the road glaring white, and the light so dazzling as to keep the face puckered up. On the way we passed a number of gentlemen's houses, the garden porches of which were crowned with large blocks of quartz doubtless symbolical of the way the proprietors had made their money. We saw, too, a small wooden house, the tenant of which receives ^6000 a fortnight as dividend on mining shares. This wealthy man leads the life of a hermit, and occupies his time principally by smoking and drinking a wretched fate. Kangaroo Flat is an extensive mining ground about three miles out from Sandhurst. Heaps upon heaps of yellow " tailings " lined the road, like mammoth mole-hills ; while distributed through them were the most wretched Chinese huts. The weather was again hot, and the rough sandy footpath swarmed with ants. We sat down to rest ourselves beside two Chinamen, who were engaged with a " cradle " in sifting a large heap of cast-off " tailings " from one of the quartz-crushing batteries. We inquired about their luck, and the younger of the two turned out his sieve with great glee, showing us " one speck, one speck," with an air of acquired fortune. The elder China- man then asked us in broken English where we came from ; and after we had repeated the word " Scotland " two or three times vociferously, he brightened up, and said patronisingly, he had heard of the place. Before leaving them we sang " Allister McAllister" to their great delight, though our taste may be questioned in singing the least intelligible of Scottish songs to the most foreign of foreigners. At Epsom, five miles from Sandhurst, we went into a Chinese shop and bought a Chinese book. It was illustrated profusely with woodcuts. After some haggling we gave eighteenpence for it. " Nice book, John ? " " Welly good book ! " at which all the surrounding crowd of pig-tails were inwardly convulsed with laughter. We seized a passing Chinaman " Read this ! " " Ah ! welly good book one year book days, moons last year book him no good now ! " The rascally Chinese had sold us an old almanac ! In Sandhurst we became acquainted with two of its principal characters, whom we shall call Messrs Smith and Jones. Their career has been a wonderful mixture of luck, pluck, and perse- verance. They came over from Ireland with their better-halves about twenty years ago. They were close friends, and made an Sandhurst. 33; agreement to go shares in every undertaking. On landing in Sandhurst their exchequer was limited, and they spent their all in purchasing a waggon and two horses, with which they carried goods to the miners upon the goldfields. With ingenious economy this vehicle was converted at night into a two-storey house, Mr and Mrs Smith occupying the interior of the waggon, while Mr and Mrs Jones slept underneath. As the goods- carrying business increased and prospered, Smith and Jones came to be proprietors of a small cottage, in which they were one day digging a cellar, when lo ! a bright stream of water bubbled up to the surprise and joy of the two Irishmen ; for water was a scarcity in those days, and was brought from a long distance at great expense. The two friends carefully tapped the stream, and sold water to the miners at one shilling a bucketful another source of increasing revenue. By various steps they rose to be the proprietors of two fine hotels. During the late mining excitement they must have made large sums of money, as the bars of their hotels were crowded six deep with stockholders and miners discussing the state of the market or the value of mining scrip. Mr Smith, it is said, spent nearly 200 per week upon music-hall performers, who warbled attractively in his hotel the entertainment being free to all, and the proprietor making a handsome profit out of half-a- crown " drinks." Mr Smith is an erect old man, seventy years of age, and as hearty as a man of fifty. Mr Jones is a younger man, and has 11,000 acres of land on the banks of the river Campaspe, besides 13,000 acres of Government property which he lately acquired, making in all 24,000 acres just a nice little plot of land where he can comfortably spend his declining years. Amongst many sights we saw in Sandhurst, we have a vivid recollection of a large public school in the vicinity of the town, kept by an Aberdonian, who exercises rigid authority over some hundreds of scholars. We heard the pupils propound and answer questions of great arithmetical intricacy, and test each other upon historical chronology in a clever manner. After school had been dismissed in stern, regimental fashion, the dancing class commenced. Half-a-dozen boys and girls entered the class-room, marshalled by an elderly dame, another Aberdonian, who unfolded to the rising generation the mys- teries of Highland reels, flings, and strathspeys. It would have done a Celtic heart good to have seen the lady tripping round the room followed by her juvenile charge, who executed the c 34 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. same manoeuvres like so many shadows, hooking their elbows and snapping their thumbs in true Highland manner. The music was played on the fiddle by the enthusiastic schoolmaster himself. After a general quadrille the door burst open, and in skipped six boys dressed in long tartan scarfs and plumed Glengarry bonnets. With a simultaneous " hooch " they dashed at once into a vigorous Highland fling, the fiddler loud and louder scraped, the dancers quick and quicker danced, they threw off their tartan sashes, and cast away their bonnets one by one they fell breathless into their seats, till at last a solitary boy, the son of the schoolmaster, finished off victoriously. From Sandhurst we went north to Echuca, 166 miles from Melbourne, and the terminus of the line that runs to the River Murray, the stream that divides Victoria from New South Wales. We arrived in Echuca in the night-time, passing through a wide expanse of grey, indefinite plains. This may be taken as a fair sample of most Australian townships. At the station there were no signs of a town merely a deputation of houses headed by a small hotel. After a short drive, however, came the main street, full of red brick stores and wooden houses, each end of the street terminating in rough wild bush which bush lurks in back-yards and gardens, and creeps in at all corners -Echuca seeming to have settled down bodily in the forest, and scraped itself a resting-place. Down each side of the road stretch rows of young fenced-in saplings, which will by-and- by give the street a shady secluded appearance. The prin- cipal street is paved with small circular blocks of wood stone being scarce, and brought from Sandhurst. Not a vestige of stone did we see lying about the ground the whole time we were in Echuca. The want of stone is also noticeable in the number of wooden houses, some of them being mere bark huts, with corrugated iron roofs. The banks and stores are of brick ; the railway station is of stone ; the town hall, a neat small build- ing, is constructed of variegated brick ; so are nearly all the churches. The River Murray is the feature of the town, and was the largest river we had seen in the colony. It was full-flowing, with a rapid current, nineteen feet above summer level. The river is crossed at Echuca by a floating wooden bridge, 354 feet wide a succession of drawbridges resting on pontoons, to accommodate the bridge to the variable heights of the river, and allow the passage of boats. The steamboats that ply up and down are flat-bottomed vessels, drawing little water, and pro- A Border Town. 35 pelled by stern-wheels. The Murray is navigable, for many months in the year, 400 miles to the east, and 2000 miles to the west, where it falls into the sea at Adelaide. The river traffic has become of great importance, and forty steamboats are now on the Murray, going as far as Gundagai, in New South Wales, and Fort Bourke, on the border of Queensland. We were rowed up the Murray one afternoon by a boatman of Echuca. The river was running strong, while numerous and dangerous "snags" or protruding stumps were breaking the current. Our companion varied the journey by narrating his exploits on the river. " You must know," said he, " I was a smuggler on the Murray once. I used to have a chum of mine on the other shore, an' I had signals arranged just perfect. Sometimes it was a whistle, sometimes a candle. But one dark night, when we felt pretty safe, the custom-officers came down an' nailed me then and there, an' I was bound down under two hunder pound to drop my goings on." Rowing up to Moama, we saw the crossing-place for cattle, the banks on either side sloping and hoof-marked. A rope across the river worked a punt for the conveyance of men and horses, and acted as a guiding-line for the swimming cattle. This cattle-crossing is said to be a very exciting spectacle. Along the banks were traces of the great flood of 1870 a disastrous overflow of the river which rendered Echuca amphibious for many days. The hotel we lived at had been severely damaged by this flood. The ceiling in the sitting-room showed two yawning gaps with protruding laths, and the plaster was coming down in flakes the whole time we were there ; but we were assuringly told that no dangerously large pieces had fallen for some time. We happened to look in one morning at the Town Hall, where law and justice were being administered. A half-caste had been brought down from one of the outlying squatting stations, charged with an assault upon the son of the landowner the whole affair at best but a paltry quarrel. There were present two justices on the bench, a clerk, the prosecutor, and witnesses in a box, flanked by a sergeant of police, a local constable, a trooper booted and spurred, and a miscellaneous crowd of townsfolk in the garbs of their respective callings. After great consultation and passage of time, with cross- examination of witnesses who were continually being snubbed for uttering " hearsay," the dark-faced man was ordered to be removed to the lock-up for twelve hours. The Town Hall is divided by folding doors into a court of justice and a concert- 36 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. room, and in the latter we gave our entertainment that same evening. Amongst the audience we saw our friends of the morning the two justices, the clerk of the court, the com- plainant, the witnesses, the policeman, and the trooper all but the prisoner, who, we were told, was unable to attend, as his sentence would not expire till an hour after the concert had concluded ! Echuca was founded by a Mr Hopwood as late as the year 1853 about which time it was called " Hopwood's Ferry." The first land sale took place in 1855. There was, however, no railway to Melbourne in those days, and people did not care about settling in such a remote district, more especially as the blacks were then very numerous and troublesome. But during the great spluttering rush to the Bendigo gold-fields, some splashes of population found their way as far north as Echuca. The railway from Melbourne to Sandhurst in 1863, and the popular Land Act of 1865, have latterly conferred immense benefit upon the struggling border town. There are two industries flourishing at Echuca leech-catching at Lake Moira, some miles north of Echuca; and cod-fishing in the Murray. The first pursuit is not of a very agreeable nature, but the "leechers," as they are called, make it very profitable. The leeches are very plentiful, and caught by the men covering their limbs with flesh-coloured skin, to which the creatures greedily adhere. After the men have their legs suf- ficiently dotted over with leeches, the latter are drawn off into jars, and in go the pedal extremities once more a systematic business-like process. The leechers get 8 per thousand for them in England, so that their avocation must to some extent be remunerative. The cod-fishing is of course on a more ex- tensive scale, the Melbourne market being well supplied with the fish. The Murray cod is not very delicate eating, but has a flavour of its own, and is relished by many. It grows to an immense size, some of the fish weighing 70 Ibs., and one has even been caught weighing 90 Ibs. On our way down to Castlemaine, we had to pass Sandhurst again. This time we saw the White Hills, an unparalleled sight, for from both windows of the railway carriage we could see far-stretching landscapes of sand' diggings on a more ex- tensive scale than any we had seen or dreamt of. We seemed to be passing through a snow-drift^a continued glare of sand lighting up for many miles the interior of the carriage. I never realised till that moment the fact that thousands of men had A Chinese Joss-Hwtse. 37 been almost unceasingly digging for gold during a score of years now I felt as if two or three generations had been made mil- lionaires out of the district. The place has left a dent in our. memory. Castlemaine is a thriving town, half-mining, half-agricultural. There is here, of course, the Mongolian element. But the Castlemaine Chinese are very respectable. They have a block of the town entirely to themselves, with stone buildings, shops with plate-glass windows, and a general well-to-do appearance. We made a point of seeing their curious Joss-house or temple, lying upon the slope of a hill ten minutes' walk from the town. It was a small red brick building. The entrance porch was elaborately decorated with coloured masks and carvings, a grotesque array of grinning faces and yawning dolphins. The interior was most ornate and gaudy. An altar, embellished with exceedingly minute carvings, and filled with boxes con- taining fire-sticks or tapers, stood in the centre, while two finely-painted pictures occupied the extremity of the temple. One was a representation of a grinning blue dolphin, a favourite Chinese symbol, and the other depicted the great Joss himself as a grey-bearded old man. Round the walls were pasted the various receipts and accounts written out during the recent con- struction of the temple Smith's signature for bricks, Jones's for laths, Thomson's for labour, Brown's for stone pavement, and so on plain matter of fact in a weird romantic situation. On each side of the temple was a circular opening or niche. One contained a large hobby-horse with a head-dress of golden feathers, and with saucers of incense and carefully-arranged tapers placed under the animal's head. In the opposite niche were seated two Chinamen. One of them, a small, cadaverous man, was smoking a wooden pipe about three feet long, sucking the vapours in with collapsed cheeks and protruding cheek- bones. When he had got a good mouthful he seemed to masticate it, then leant back and sent the smoke spouting in two distinct streams through his nostrils, with the air of a confirmed devotee. The other Chinaman turned out to be one of the actors we had seen in the tent at Melbourne, and, in a jerky and disjointed manner, he described to us how much the theatrical company were hurt at the interruption of the per- formance by bricks and other missiles. We consoled him as well as we could, and bade him good-bye yea, farewell ! for he was shortly leaving on a professional tour to his " own country, China." 38 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. At Castlemaine we took our leave of the railway, as we intended to prosecute further journeys by coach, and had mapped out some thousands of miles of bush-travelling. Hearing of a suitable conveyance for sale, we went one morn- ing to a hotel-yard, where we saw an American waggon, with a square-built body, and glazed leather roof. The vehicle was hung upon " thorough-braces," two or three layers of leather belts bound together with clamps iron springs being useless for Australian travelling, save in the case of light carts and buggies. The proprietor of this coach was in the " show " line, and had travelled most of the colony with this same waggon. " Here's the machine, gentlemen." We examined it carefully, fingered the bolts and nuts, jerked the wheels, measured our limbs on the box seat, unrolled the side curtains, moved the moveable seats, and scrutinized the condition of naves, tires, and axles. Every- thing was satisfactory, but we got a practical wheelwright to examine the vehicle verdict, good for its age. " Here's the horses, gentlemen " three stout, middle-aged horses, which we approached without fear, slapping their quarters and pinching their fetlocks in true professional style. We got a veterinary surgeon to give his opinion verdict, horses as excellent as they were old. " And here's the driver, gentlemen " a short, red-haired Irishman, on whom we pronounced our own favour- able verdict We bought the whole " turn-out," and engaged the driver. Next morning the coach drove up to the hotel door, the leading grey horse prancing and curvetting in a way that made us proud. We packed the coach, building up the back part with luggage. Imagine the rack carefully strapped and roped up ; imagine four of us inside, and two on the box ; imagine no, you cannot imagine how we tore down the principal street and out into the country, bowling along a capital road, with the horses fresh, the day auspicious, a fine breeze blowing, and the landscape interesting. We had scarcely begun to feel the full sense of proprietorship when we were rushing into Kyneton, waking the shopkeepers, scattering stray groups of children, and rousing an infinity of dogs, who yelped, barked, and howled incessantly in our trail till we rattled, with a succession of loud whip-cracks, into the paved courtyard of the hotel. Kyneton was a quiet agricultural township, in the midst of meadows, and paddocks, and fields of ripening grain. We drove out by invitation to a farm five miles distant It was a good sample of the style of living amongst the farmers. It A Storm in tJte Bush. 39 was a. comfortable house of four rooms, stone-built and plain. The tenants, however, had their share of troubles and anxieties. We noticed a hole by the side of the fire-place, with a large brick lying alongside, and we said laughingly to the goodwife, " You're fully prepared for the rats and mice, we see." "Mice !" she exclaimed, " we've no mice here ; it's a snake. We keep the brick off through the day, because we can see to kill the creature ; but we put the brick on at dusk, in case it gets out without us seeing it. Besides, I don't like the idea of the animal crawling through the house in the night-time ! " The farm was situated on the banks of the Campaspe, amid a beautiful expanse of softly swelling hills and luxuriant hollows, clothed with delightful verdure. A fine orchard overlooked the river, and it being the month of December, the trees were loaded with cherries of great size and luxuriance ; plums, apples, and pears being there also in great abundance. The river Cam- paspe, which, strange to say, flows inland a hundred miles northwards to the Murray, was dry when we saw it, with a deep water-hole appearing here and there in the bed of the river, a wonderful provision of Australian nature, by which man and beast can quench their thirst in the dead heat of summer. Soon after we encountered a bush-storm, while crossing the ranges near Mount Macedon. It was a wild lowering day. The air was full of flying twigs and leaves. Beautiful parrots and chattering magpies darted vaguely around. At one place a tree had fallen across the path, blown down a moment or two before by the blast, but careful handling of the horses got us safely past. In every creak we thought we heard the sound of falling timber. A burst of rain compelled us to take shelter alongside a small hut. Then the storm reached a climax of fury, amid the loud groaning of the trees and the screams of children in the cottage. The wind tore over the hills, sweep- ing the rain before it in masses of spray. On every side flew branches of trees. Close by us, a giant of the forest rent asunder near its base, and slowly tottering, fell with an alarm- ing crash amid clouds of earth. The sky was inky black, but through a rent in the darkness there came vivid flashes of lightning, followed by deafening thunder. After a blinding shower of rain we resumed our journey. The road was strewn in all directions by fallen trees, enormous limbs, branches, uptorn roots, and white flakes of timber. In several instances the fences had been destroyed on both sides of the road by the 40 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. fall of more than usually lofty trees. But happily we escaped unscathed from the perils of the ranges. We returned to Melbourne in time for the holidays. Beyond doubt the Melbourne people enjoy themselves at Christmas time. The town is deserted people fly to the sea-shore, Brighton, St Kilda, or Geelong, as the case may be. The trains rush the inhabitants off in hundreds to Sandhurst. Ballarat, and other stations ; the steamboats convey excursionists down to the Heads, Schnapper Point, Queenscliff, and the favourite resorts of the bay ; and hundreds stroll about the suburbs in full enjoyment of fetes, school-gatherings, and pic-nics, or spend the day in pleasant boat-parties on the Yarra. The day before Christmas we saw numbers of carts rattling into town, loaded with larg-e ferns and bunches of green shrubbery for purposes of decoration. We noticed, too, our old friend the Christmas tree, though it seemed hardly so popular as in the old country. The markets were radiant with flowers, and overflowing with fruit ; the stalls were besieged and crowded. The shops were also well patronised, the grocers especially doing an exceed- ingly good stroke of business. The pavements were almost impassable. Christmas Day passed off quietly, and folks seemed to spend it in the same domestic manner as at home. At first a person cannot reconcile Christmas with a blazing sun and a bright blue sky ; but in a short time he ceases to wonder, and enjoys his smoking roast-beef and plum-pudding all the same, though the Australian in this respect is entitled to more credit than the Englishman, who has all the appetising influ- ences of cold weather to give zest to his enthusiasm. In due course came Boxing Day, with its burst of entertainments and general pleasure-going. The streets throng with vehicles con- veying people out of town, the principal thoroughfare being the St Kilda Road. Here we see an endless procession of con- veyances. They rush past us with noise and clouds of dust ah omnibus loaded inside and out, looking top-heavy from the number of fares upon the roof; an Albert car, licensed to carry six persons, conveying about double that number ; a railway cart full of happy well-dressed people ; a group of horsemen winding in and out ; a butcher's cart with a noisy crew of youths ; a parcel-delivery van exhibiting bunches of arms and clusters of legs ; a canvas-covered waggon filled with school children bound on a pic-nic, singing, shouting, and laughing; another group of horsemen; a gentleman's carriage with attendant flunkeys, and an escort of fashionable Christmas in Melbourne. 41 equestrians ; a cart from Paddy's Market ; a cluster of buggies and phaetons, with a party out for a very select pic-nic ; another crammed omnibus, another car, another school treat ; more dust, with more rattle and noise, continuing for the whole fore- noon. In the evening we saw a pantomime at the Theatre Royal, Bourke Street a really excellent performance, with good scenery, good singing, and good acting. The gallery was a trifle noisier than I had expected shrieks, hoots, whistles, and cat-calls continuing all through the preliminary farce. There was nothing to stamp it as an Australian pantomime, till the clown leapt upon the stage in a variegated dress, with the figure of an emu on the front of it, and a kangaroo on the back. The clown had become acclimatised ! At the Prince of Wales' Theatre opposite there was an opposition pantomime ; at the Town Hall, a grand intercolonial musical festival ; and on New Year's Day, a grand Caledonian Gathering, with Highland sports and games. CHAPTER IV. A SQUATTING-STATION A DROVE OF KANGAROOS THE BUSH AND BUSH-ROADS THE MIDDLE DIGGINGS. IN January 1873, we left Melbourne for a tour in the western or pastoral district of Victoria. Before leaving the metropolis two elder members of our party invested in a horse and buggy, as they found the coach to be too fatiguing. The first stage of our journey consisted in a steamboat sail from Melbourne to Geelong, our horses being brought on board at great risk over a mass of greasy cow-hides that littered the main deck. The sail down the Yarra was anything but pleasant, the vessel moving slowly past the unsavoury smells of bone-works and tanneries. Owing to the narrowness of the river, a large swell followed the steamer, sweeping bank high on both sides at one time almost obliterating an unwary angler, and at another dispersing a score of boys who had dared to sit dangling their legs over the water. In a few hours we arrived at Geelong, whence we started on our journey. We stayed a night at Winchelsea, and spent two days at Colac. Leaving Coiac, we entered upon flat country the coach running quietly along a soft earthy road. I sat half asleep upon the box, while Patrick our driver trolled out some obscure Irish love-song, stamping the time cheerily with his right foot. I had become tired of counting the telegraph posts, and staring ahead for the white milestones. Every now and then the hot sunshine would glow on my face, making me unspeakably drowsy. Heigho ! A violent nudge on the elbow from Patrick. " Hillo, now, wake up, wake up ; don't you know we're just upon driving through the Stony Rises ! " I rubbed my eyes, and looked about me. We had suddenly come, with all the pleasantness of a transition in music, upon a lovely collection of hills, volcanic in origin, shaded by trees, and strewn with innumerable boulders, between which grew clusters of fern or bracken. For several miles we passed through this scenery, the road winding up and down Camperdown. 43 hill amid miniature glens and charming dells, with the same delightful blending of bracken and boulder. Presently Lake Korangamite gleamed through the trees upon our right This is the largest expanse of salt water in Victoria, being eighty miles in circumference and twenty miles long. Like the other lakes in this district, it is supposed to be formed upon the site of an extinct volcano, and the peculiar saltness is said to be due to the drainage of the basaltic rock. Most of the country in Western Victoria is volcanic, and possesses rich soil. Approaching the village of Camperdown, we saw a hill of a conical shape, called the " Sugar-Loaf." Whenever you see a cone-shaped peak in Australia, be sure and call it the " Sugar- Loaf. " In nine cases out of ten you will be right. The number of volcanic sugar-loaves we became acquainted with was something extraordinary. Camperdown is first seen lying beneath you as you descend the lower slope of Mount Leura. It is a very picturesque township, and consists of a number of detached one-storey houses, lining a thoroughfare two hundred feet wide, which thoroughfare is merely a continuation 'into the town of the main road. This extreme width of street dwarfs the buildings, but gives one an enjoyable feeling of space, freedom, and fresh air. The road has a broad margin of grass upon either side, called the " Poor Man's Paddock." This is used by stockdrivers for pasturing their cattle upon a long journey, and by passing travellers for their horses. In Camperdown we first saw an aboriginal black. He appeared at the hotel-door in a white hat with a black band round it, a light linen coat, and tattered grey trousers. He had a flat nose, thick lips, dark black eyes, and straight hair. He made us a long speech, which was rather incoherent, owing to whisky and broken English ; but we could make out that he was sadly in want of a " lubra " or wife. Unfortunately for him, " all the white men take the white women ; he no get one." This involun- tary black bachelor then whiningly begged for a " lickspince " (sixpence), the favourite coin of the race, and went off, making a series of exaggerated salutes. Most of the western towns have a local black; and this one, for distinction's sake, was called " Camperdown George." Government supplies with clothes, meat, and tobacco, any black who will reside in a particular township, but their vagrant life is too strong a temptation for them. A gentlemanJn Camperdown informed us that he had officially given away about ^500 worth of cloth- 2|4 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. ing to the natives, but that most of it had been found spread over various parts of the country. No one is allowed to sell drink to the aborigine, but the latter turns his clothes into money, and then gets the first available white man to purchase the whisky. Here, in Western Victoria, reigns the squatter. He is no rough customer, but a pushing gentleman, full of care and fore- thought. He lives in a handsome villa on his property, enjoy- ing his fine table, his wine, his library, and his garden. In short, he is the landed aristocrat of Australia. In the early days, before settlement was common, the squatter came upon the heels of the explorer, and " pegged out " thousands of acres, for which he paid a nominal rent to Government. But by the Land Act passed in 1869, the squatter, before he can own his large tract of country, has to buy it at ^i per acre. Now, as this would involve in many cases an impracticable outlay of ^20,000 or ;6o,ooo, the squatter is allowed to keep a large portion of his " run " at the old nominal rent ; but with this important difference, that the unbought acres are liable at any moment to be taken up by the squatter's natural enemy, the " free selector " or bush-farmer. In Victoria every settler gets 320 acres, for which he pays two shillings per acre annually for three years. After that he gets a Crown grant on payment of fourteen shillings per acre. Four years later, the land becomes his freehold ; so that in seven years, at a small outlay, any man can live on his own farm. Through the kindness of a squatter living near Camperdown, we had a glimpse of life at a sheep-station. His house lay some eight miles away, on the brow of a hill. We approached it through extensive sheep-runs and paddocks, arriving at the house through a closely-shaded avenue of trees, and along a well-planned terrace garden. It was a fine large building, though only one storey in height, and not at all in accordance with our preconceived ideas. We had always regarded a squatter's house as a kind of rural habitation, a farm-house on an extensive scale ; but here we saw an elegant verandahed building surrounded by sloping gardens, and uniting in itself all the homeliness of rural life with the luxuries of modern society. The house had a fine situation on the hill, and from the terrace you could see most part of the country round. In the early days people thought our friend mad to settle and build a house where he did, there being.no water in the immediate neighbour- hood. But he outlived alt remark, and proceeded to dig wells, A Squatting-Station. 45 finding water in clear springs at a depth of thirty feet. Previous to dinner we ascended the hill at the back of the house, and from the summit had a most transcendent view of the pastoral region, mottled with sunshine and shade. On one side grassy plains stretched away beneath our feet, with softly rounded knolls suddenly rising out of the level country, while on the other there rolled hill upon hill, as far as the Cape Otway Ranges. Looking far below, we saw battalions of sheep wheeling and manoeuvring upon the slope of the hill, with a dark speck representing a man on horseback, who was transferring them from one run to another. While on the hill-top, our host gave us the topography of the district how his station extended to that fence, that dark line away in the distance how it took in most of what we saw on the left hand oh, no, that lake did not belong to him that was Mr Smith's lake that hill there, however, was his; but the mountain further away was purchased recently by Mr Jones, and now called Jones' Hill. After dinner we were mounted on a number of stock-horses. We had not the slightest claim to be equestrians, having never before been on horseback ; but it was necessary for us to ride, as we wished to see the sheep-washing sheds some miles off. After a wild canter, full of bumps and bangs which goaded the horses to full speed, we reached the sheds and washing-dam. Here were described the various operations the sheep have to undergo in order to make their wool white, free from grease, and in a generally fit state for market. The sheep are first driven into a large tank full of soap and warm water, where they are effec- tually cleansed from grease and all impurities ; after which they are rinsed in a cold water tank, with the addition of a shower bath from the height of four or five feet. After this Turkish bath the sheep are taken to the wool-shed, where they remain overnight to dry, the shearers setting to work upon them early in the morning. The men are paid at the rate of 155. per 100 sheep, and a skilled hand can shear about sixty sheep in ten hours. On our way back we dashed along in grand though painful style. It was an exciting ride, more especially to a certain member of our party, who bumped and banged behind me, and who on getting side by side with me yelled out between the bumps, in a moment of inspiration, " I feel ! as if I was ! on the deck of a one-ton ship! in a storm off the Cape of Good Hope! without any bulwarks ! " He bumped and banged off ahead, trying to turn round and wink, but his hat blew off, and we never overtook him till we all bumped and banged into the 46 Kennedy's Colonial Travel. avenue fronting the house. This was peculiarly a sheep-station. At Terang, a small village fourteen miles further west, we visited a cattle-station. It occupied n,ooo acres, and was stocked with 3000 horses and cattle. The house was substantially built of stone, and had a large fruit garden in the rear, with two or three croquet lawns, recently formed for the use of the family and chance visitors. Water pipes, for the purpose of supplying the cattle troughs, had recently been laid out at an expense of ^5000. Lake Keilambete immediately adjoins the house, a large expanse of fresh water, one-half of which adjoins the station, the opposite side being occupied by a number of free selectors. We spent a Sunday in Terang, at- tending the Presbyterian Church in the afternoon. The congre- gation assembled in true country fashion from miles round. Men and women rode up to the door, and hitched their horses to the church-paling ; others drove up in buggies and carts ; and the gentry came in stylish vehicles. This church had only one service every Sunday, and was supported chiefly by the landowners round about. The minister had a very comfort- able position, with a very short service " In fact," he said to us with a quiet look, " I daren't keep the squatters more than an hour." The road to Mortlake, our next stage, lay through extensive cattle-runs. The coach rolled along, sweeping aside the over- hanging branches, and winding round about the stumps as if engaged in a gum-tree quadrille. We were in high spirits, and the driver had just begun to whistle the symphony to his love- ballad, when See, see ! haul up the horses ! by all that's wonderful, a kangaroo ! a real, live kangaroo, right in the middle of the track, its eyes staring directly towards us, its languid forepaws preparing for a leap. There it is off ! Hooray! it has cleared the high fence, tail and all, with feet to spare, bounding through the forest, scattering the dry leaves and twigs, and rousing three others, who keep company with it in flight. Hooray ! another and another, and yet another, crop out behind the trees, till there is a full score of them bobbing irregularly in the distance. Hooray ! hooray ! our shouts have roused scores more, and the vista is filled with them in full retreat. Oh, how pretty ! A drove of youthful kangaroos burst into an open glade, and follow their elders with juvenile leaps. The ladies of our party wave their handkerchiefs. In a few moments the kangaroos will have vanished; they seem but grey phantoms flitting A Drove of Kangaroos. 47 through the trees in the far distance. There, the last tail has disappeared. Hooray ! We give three cheers for the kangaroos we sit down hoarse and breathless crack ! goes the whip, and we're off on the track once more ! You cannot say you have seen the kangaroo till you have seen it leap. The animal is placed to great disadvantage in a cage or in an enclosure. You miss those immense bounds, sometimes, in the case of the larger kangaroos, reaching a dis- tance of 30 feet, which seem to the eye to be slow and regular, but which are conveying the animal at an immense speed through the forests. Kangaroos are unmitigated pests to the squatter, as they impoverish the cattle-runs by eating up the valuable grass. They are hunted unmercifully, and a special breed of dogs are kept for the purpose. These kangaroo-dogs are to be seen hanging about all the townships in this region wiry muscular animals, seamed and scarred with wounds. They are very plucky, and boldly attack the kangaroo. The latter is very desperate when brought to bay, facing the dogs, gripping them in a mortal embrace, and tearing them up with its strong hind claws. The same process applies to a human being. " Don't you get into their clutches," a man once said to us ; " it's like being hugged by a bear with a circular saw in its stomach ! " The settlers sometimes organize themselves into a large hunting party, and drive the kangaroos along a gradually narrowing pen into a high-fenced enclosure, where they are in- discriminately shot or worried by dogs, though now and then the kangaroo takes a standing leap at the seven-foot fence, and escapes with his valuable skin. Another day's journey brought us to Warrnambool, a seaport town on the shores of Lady Bay, 170 miles south-west from Melbourne. It is a seaport town only in so far as it is situated upon the coast, and has a few steamers calling in two or three times a week from Melbourne, Geelong, Belfast, or Portland there being absent that fringe of shipping, warehouse bustle, and maritime population which one associates with a seaport town. The chief exports from Warrnambool are wool and wheat ; potatoes also are shipped in large quantities. Koroit, a small Irish town about ten miles off, is the head-quarters of an extraordinary potato district. Warrnambool has a well- sheltered, commodious harbour, with a long stretching beach, which we made a point of visiting every morning, strolling amid a glitter of sun, sand, and sea the sharply-defined horizon unbroken save by the long, faint, trailing smoke of some 48 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. coasting steamer rounding one of the numerous points of land. The town is situated upon hilly, sandy ground. Building operations were in active progress. The sandstone found in the district is of a peculiarly soft and friable nature, being easily sliced and sawn out of the quarry. A workman can dexterously shape it into symmetrical blocks with hammer or trowel, and the buildings have therefore a particular air of neatness and finish durability increasing with age, as the stone gradually hardens upon exposure to the air. On our way to Belfast we saw a peculiar isolated piece of scenery, by name "Tower Hill," a number of peaked, wooded heights rising from the centre of a large lake or basin, surrounded by high precipitous banks our old acquaintance the volcano in another character. The whole of the vegetation on the hills was in flames, owing to the extreme heat of the previous day. The volumes of smoke which hung about the hills added a mysterious grandeur to the scene, the distant crashing of the falling trees coming faintly upon the ear. As the road wound round the rim of the crater, we had a many-sided view of the lake and its islands. Belfast, another seaport town, is situated near the harbour of Port Fairy. A day or two previously there had been a storm on the coast, and from the knolly, scrub-grown beach we saw the subsiding effects of the tempest great billows rolling in from the sea, and crashing amongst the rocks. Immense pieces of sea-weed were thrown on shore, with roots like mammoth thigh-bones, and leaves twenty feet long, as tough as thickest leather. Thousands of shells, too, lay along the beach ; and smaller sea-plants, in every variety of shade and colour, delicately fibred and exquisitely tinted. Portland, 45 miles further west, was reached by a really bad road, which at one point ran along the sea-beach. We had the greatest difficulty in getting along at all, as the storm had blown and washed up the sand into uncouth, irregular hillocks the wheels of the vehicles sinking in one or two instances over the axles. We had all to get out and walk, leaving the driver and horses to blunder along as best they could. After charging a mile or two of sand-heaps, one of the horses fell in a fit of the " staggers," and was only revived after great difficulty. The last few miles of the beach were carpeted with sea-weeds to the depth of two or three feet a sloppy footing for man and beast. Our journey of forty-five miles beneath a hot sun took from seven o'clock in the morning till seven at night. Portland lies half-way between Melbourne and Adelaide, being about 250 Tlie BusJi and BusJi-Roads. 49 miles distant from each of the two capitals. It is situated upon the shores of Portland Bay. The town is a larger edition of Belfast, just such another blue-stone place; but it has more life and activity. It is one of the oldest settlements in the colony, Mr Henty having established a whaling station here in 1834, just six months before Bateman arrived at Port Phillip and founded Melbourne. From Portland we struck inland once more through the bush. The Bush what is the Bush ? You will find nothing like it in our British woods, in the backwoods of Canada, or the forests of New Zealand. The Australian bush is unique. Its general features are lameness and sameness. It consists of undulating, grassy, thinly-timbered country. The trees stand wide apart, and there is not the slightest undergrowth, so that a coach-and-four can drive through any part of it. The leaves on the gum-trees are long and thin, and turn their edges to the sun. There is therefore very little shade in the bush ; the sun penetrates freely, and the grass, which is always light, grows thin and brown in the summer-time. Everything appears to be burnt up. The earth is hard and dry, and has not the springy velvetiness of a British park. The trunks of the trees are dry ; there is no humid moss about the roots. The bush road winds its lonely way through the forest in many a curve, every succeeding horse and vehicle helping to give it more defined form. When wet weather comes, the mas- sive lumbering bullock-drays form deep holes and ruts in the track, and lighter vehicles have to spread out in different direc- tions to avoid the old road. It is no uncommon sight to see seven or eight different tracks taking their several ways through the bush in all stages of development, from the almost completed road to the barely perceptible wheel-marks on the grass. Some- times the traveller comes to a wide open space, with tracks winding tantalisingly to right and left, and if a " new chum," or stranger, he is sadly at a loss. They stretch out before him like the fingers on his outspread hand. This one does not lead in the right direction ; that one does not seem well enough trodden to be trustworthy. He would take the middle-finger track, if a little further on it did not suddenly turn in a suspicious fore- finger direction. The thumb starts well, but after all it is hardly so taking as the little-finger track. Yes, it will do ; and yet the fourth finger is the very way he wants to go. It appears to keep a straight course. Tut, tut ! it gets fainter and fainter. Oh, if there were only a hut to inquire at ! The stranger is sorely D 50 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. puzzled, but in the end trusts to luck, little knowing that the tracks all harmoniously blend at no distant spot, like the con- verging lines of a railway junction. A bush road is generally lonely, and you never meet any one except an occasional swagman, stock-rider, bullock-driver, or commercial traveller. The swagman or tramp is a kind of demoralized gaberlunzie, who trudges about from squatter to squatter, and from township to township, begging food or assistance on his journey; which journey is endless, and con- tinues from year's end to year's end. The professional swag- man walks to live. One species of tramp is the " sundowner," so called from his habit of appearing at a squatting-station about sunset, and asking food and shelter for the night. The generous " open-door" hospitality of the early days, which has latterly been abused, is fast disappearing from amongst the squatters, and instead of his usual cold mutton, the swagman now gets the cold shoulder. Sometimes the tramps accept work once a year, about shearing time, at one or other of the sheep stations, or seek occupation in a country town ; but as a rule they are migratory and lazy. An uninitiated person is very apt to confound the swagman with the foot-passenger or unemployed mechanic travelling in search of work, their equipment being the same a "swag," or strapped-up bundle of sleeping- blankets, slung over the shoulder ; a " billy " or tin can in which to make tea or coffee while camping; and a small " pannikin " to drink water out of at any creek or spring. Now and then you see sailors and ship-stewards " swaggmg it" through the bush, runaways from some lately-landed vessel, but the eye at once detects them as amateurs; they have not the swing of the professional loafer. As for the stock-rider, you can hear him for a long distance waking the echoes of the bush with loud pistol-cracks, as he swings the short-handled, long-thonged stock-whip round his head. He rides up to the tail of a drove of cattle, managing his horse with great facility and grace, though stock-riding is one of the most arduous and difficult of occupations. He is generally dressed in low-crowned, broad- brimmed hat, loose flannel shirt, tight white trousers, and high top-boots, with a handkerchief of some sort tied round his neck a trifle like the pictures one sees at home of the stockman, but some degrees less spick-and-span looking. While driving along you will sometimes observe in the distance a cloud of white dust, and hear the creak of wheels, with loud shouts and whip-lashes, which announce the ap- A Busk Concert. 51 proach of the bullock-driver and his team. In a short time you see emerging from the cloud a string of six, eight, or ten long-horned bullocks, with heavy hanging heads, and a slow swinging gait of some three miles an hour. The oxen are yoked to a long dray with small, broad-tired wheels, the whole affair having quite an Eastern appear- ance ; but instead of a turbaned individual with a goad, you have a seedy, dust-covered man in a slouched hat. He carries a long whip, its trailing lash some eight feet in length, with which he flips the haunches of the furthest bullock. " Hoick ! hoick ! get up, Diamond ! Now then, Daisy ! come hither, Strawberry! Hoick! hold off, Brandy ! Hoick! you short-horned Whisky, come up ! Nobbier, what do you mean, eh ? hoick ! hoick ! " He seizes the long-handled whip and gives each a cut in turn, with the addition of high-flavoured epithets, the bullock- driver being chargeable with a large amount of vocal sin. The commercial traveller is much the same kind of person as at home. He rattles through the bush in a waggonette with two horses, his tin boxes of samples strapped behind, and his "man " driving on the seat beside him. In warm weather the commercial throws off his coat, pulls out his meerschaum pipe, and buries himself in the newspaper ; even he can throw off ceremony in the bush. Then there are the public coaches, owned by Cobb & Co., that spank along with their team of four horses, passing you with a cheery salute from the driver, and hand-wavings from the box- passengers a pleasant break in the bush monotony. At night these red coaches flare along with a circle of immense lamps over the driver's head a halo of inverted coal-scuttles that gleam over the horses' backs, and shine away forward into the darkness, revealing the track, and keeping the coach clear of obstacles. At Branxholme, a small village, we gave a concert ; but the only place we could get to sing in was a little wooden school- room that stood solitary some 300 yards away in the bush. The room was so limited that tickets had to be sold at a table in the open air. Twenty minutes, ten minutes to eight, and yet no audience. It was not till eight o'clock, when the shades of evening had set in, that the people began to assemble. Here and there figures passed and repassed through the trees, disappearing and reappearing, but all the while gradually near- ing the schoolroom. At different points persons seemed to be starting up from the earth, so noiseless was their approach. On all sides we could hear the soft thud of horses' hoofs on the 52 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. grass, and the jolting rumble of carts. Inside was about as strange a concert-room as could well be imagined. The audi- ence were seated on school-desks and forms, while we had to sing on a platform composed of a brandy-box covered with a tablecloth. The lighting consisted of our two coach- lamps, one each end of the " stage," supplemented by one or two candles stuck in bottles, which we asked the front-seat people kindly to hold in their hands. The room was soon filled to overcrowding; but upon the doorkeeper jocosely announcing to those outside that they could go " Up the chimney for a shilling ! " some half-dozen people rushed in and immediately took up position in a large capacious fire-place, while the rest swarmed noisily outside, and looked in at numberless holes and broken windows. At ten o'clock the concert concluded, and the audience slowly dispersed amongst the trees, with cart- rumbles, hoof-falls, and phantom flittings as before. The town of Hamilton came next in our route, the chief town of the extreme western district of Victoria. It is finely built, and its streets are thronged with fashionably attired damsels. Melbourne sends forth every summer a large number of young ladies to this pastoral metropolis, where they can lead a rural life without relinquishing town luxuries. As an example of how small matters show themselves in a limited population, we may mention that one morning the landlord of our hotel lamented to us the fact, that the town was about to suffer a severe pecuniary loss, a family being on the point of leaving for Melbourne, whereby a sum of ^2000 would be lost to the com- munity annually. An individual on the staff of the local paper was also grieved at the railway now being projected to Hamilton. " It will do no good," he said ; " it spoils trade : it comes here with its refreshment rooms, and its tea and coffee at twopence a cup. It knocks all our business out of gear, too; and" (with a touch of pathos) "it brings in here the Melbourne papers only eight hours after publication ! " A thrilling incident had lately taken place in connection with the Hamilton reservoir. The simple tale was told us by a friend. A certain local black man, an aborigine, loved a " gin " or black woman. He had a strong attachment for her he could love no other there was no other within a radius of 150 miles. He had also a great love for whisky, and allowed the " gin " to join him in his libations. They were often to be seen in a happy state, wandering hand in hand amongst the scenery of the neighbourhood. One dire afternoon the " gin " came run- The Middle Diggings. 53 ning into Hamilton, wringing her hands in violent anguish. "Oh ! black man gone me see him no more he angry with me he drown himself in the dam for me ! oh ! oh !" The[alarmed inhabi- tants dragged the dam for two days with no success. Thirst prevailed all over Hamilton. At length the people determined to get at the bottom of the mystery and the reservoir : they commenced an elaborate systematic drainage. When the dam was emptied they found nothing but the blackest of mud, which they hopai might have been the black man held in solution. The minds of the Hamilton folks were agitated for many days, but at length word came that the long-sought-for savage had b^en found drunk, along with his " gin," in a low public-house in Warrnambool. Between Hamilton and Ararat we saw the lofty peaks of the Grampian Range, with Mount Abrupt towering up on the southern extremity. This range is about as peculiar as any in the colony, being serrated in an extraordinary degree, and appearing like a series of detached peaks strung together and . welded at the base. Our first view of Ararat was striking. We were bowling sharply up a gentle slope which led through a deep cutting of red soil on the brow of the hill, when the town rose swiftly up and filled the gap into which we were driving the embankments on each side of the road forming a coloured frame- work to the scene. At Ararat we struck the Middle Diggings. This region is a collection of hot, bricky, inflammable-looking townships, generally composed of one long stretch of shops and chief buildings, with other houses straggling out here and there, as if they had lost heart at not finding room in the chief street, and had become quite reckless and careless of appearances. In or near each town is the " Chinese camp," which presents the common features of poverty and dirt. These are paradoxical to the nature of the people themselves, who are generally more sober, industrious, and saving than many European miners. The huts are occasionally relieved by Chinese cottages, decorated with gay verandahs and variegated lamps ; but these are owned by long-resident nabobs, who have plodded along for twenty years, and have about ;io in the bank ! Of the 40,673 miners in Victoria, 11,216 are Chinese. Some mining- towns are flourishing ; but as a rule quartz is worked now in as unexciting and systematic a way as coal or iron. The miners get settled wages, and there is none of the old romantic fever. The men go about regretting the "good old days," when alluvial digging was in its heyday, and when " any man, 54 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. though he had his hands in his pockets, could turn up a nugget with the toe of his boot ! " Stawell, or Pleasant Creek, was a prosperous mining town, with very little of the rural in its immediate neighbourhood; At the hotel there was great scarcity of milk. Every morning a boy had to gallop on horseback into the country for milk, with two specially-made cans strapped to the saddle. Near Stawell is a small Scottish community, which some years ago was very exclusive. An Irishman, it is said, came one day to settle in the place. Next morning a deputation of indignant Scots waited on him, demanded he should either put Mac to his name, or leave the district. He chose the former alternative, and was ever afterwards known as MacFlaherty! Landsborough was our next stage a decayed mining town a musty, canvas- flapping place. You could almost fancy you saw its ribs. In .former days it was three times the size, owing to a great flock of tents that fluttered down some years ago during a famous rush. These have all fled and gone, leaving the old nucleus of bark huts and stores. Some of these wooden houses are more comfortable as to their interior arrangements than one would imagine. They have respectable furniture, and of course a piano. We say of course, because, as in most mining towns, nearly every person has a piano. During the gold rushes, when a digger became possessed of a " pile," he would perhaps commence by having a good lengthy drink, but he would assuredly at one time or other purchase a Collard or a Broad- wood. As often as not the instruments were second-hand, tuneless, and thrummy ; but what cared Alluvial Jack or Auriferous Bill? The piano had a shape to it, had a good shiny case, and was altogether about the right sort of length for them ; so out came the roll of notes, and the piano went home. Avoca was another gold-digging, with an uncomfortable hotel. In my bedroom I could see the stars through the big rents in the ceiling, and the draught was almost unbearable. The wall, however, was cheerfully ornamented with a large emblazoned card of a life insurance company the other decorations consisting of large greasy smudges and long streaks of smoke, caused no doubt by the close proximity of the candles of infuriated mosquito-hunters. We next visited the townships of Talbot, Maryborough, and Dunolly the latter a celebrated nugget-ground. At Dunolly we came across the locust plague which had been Daylesford. 5 5 devastating Victoria for several months. The locusts are about the greatest curse the colony has had for years. One clergy- man was heard to declare firmly that the crossing of the locusts over the South Australian border had been contemporaneous with the passing of the new Education Bill, which to him con- tained some objectionable clauses. Two days previously the shopkeepers of Dunolly had unanimously put up their shutters and closed business because of them. Clothing hung out to dry was subsequently found to be pierced and riddled, window- blinds even not escaping. It seemed like a heavy snow-storm, each flake animated, fluttering, and whirring. The sky was laden with wings. Every step you took startled fresh clouds of the insects. They were about an inch and a half in length, somewhat like a grasshopper, and armed with two large, power- ful, propelling saw-legs. The insects when we saw them were pursuing a southerly course, and many were the schemes put forward to get rid of them some advocating the introduction of certain well-known locust-birds, others purposing to dig trenches and build long lines of fires, as the most effectual means of riddance. The locusts, by the way, did not hear the conclusion of the argument, as they went steadily forward, and landed in the sea near Geelong. We have now come round, in the course of our circular tour, to Daylesford, seventy-eight miles from Melbourne. It is a town hidden amongst hills. It has a pretentious pink hospital, an unassuming mechanics' institute, and a small theatre. We performed in the latter building, which at this time was in a most wretched condition. It belonged to a second-rate public- house, at the back of which the theatre rose in all its brick simplicity. It was with great difficulty that we could get it ready for the evening. The interior was dingy, with cracked, mouldy walls, pasted over at places with flaring posters of dramatic companies. The public had to sit cheek-by-jowl with bare bricks and broken laths. In wet weather, the roof was so leaky that the rain formed injarge puddles on the floor, and the audience had to put up their umbrellas ! We found good halls in most places, but this was an exception. Between Buninyong and Ballan we passed the township of Mount Egerton, the locality of one of the most daring bank robberies in Victoria of late years ; while we struck the Melbourne high road at Gordon, where a bank manager travelling with a large sum of gold was cruelly murdered. Bacchus Marsh, our final stage previous to entering Melbourne, 56 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. was approached through clouds of locusts and thistledown two curses of the colony combined. Many a one laments the ill-judged patriotism that induced an enthusiastic Scotchman, to plant his national emblem in Australia. It has thriven but too well. Every wind blows its seed broadcast. The thistle nuisance has reached such gigantic proportions that a special Act of Parliament has been passed for its suppression. Bacchus Marsh is reached in all directions by rather pre- cipitous descents, and lies in a natural basin, surrounded by a girdle of sloping embankments. As the place seemed built for a flood, we commenced condoling with several of the inhabi- tants upon the great discomfort they must surfer from the inundations during the winter time ; but judge of our astonish- ment when they told us it was the driest place in all the colony. We accepted the fact as one of the numerous paradoxes which are poked at you by the Australians. They delight in heaping up wonders for you. " Our seasons and months do not agree with yours ; our cherries, as you will observe, grow with singular perversity stone outermost ; our north wind is warm, and does not breathe of snow and icicles like yours ; and our gum-trees shed their bark instead of their leaves." The hotel we were living at was the scene of a little un- pleasantness, for during the day the landlord got drunk, and had a fight with his groom for some trivial offence. The two combatants came swooping round the corner, the stableman lamenting a large portion of his shirt, and the landlord dancing about frantically with a beef-steak clapped to his eye. We ran in and hurriedly paid our bill to the landlady, who was in great fear of her husband. We determined to leave in the early morning, and went to bed as soon as possible but not to sleep ! The landlord had locked himself into the bar, and was swearing through the key-hole at everybody and everything in a gloriously uninterrupted manner, and it was not till after much coaxing, and at an early hour in the morning, that he was got out. We had then a short sleep, an early start, a breakfast half-way, and a dash into Melbourne near the close of the afternoon. So ended our eight weeks' tour of 600 miles. CHAPTER V. OVERLAND FROM MELBOURNE TO SYDNEY A BUSH CONCERT BEECHWORTH "CAMPING OUT " WAGGA WAGGA FUNERAL OF AN EXPLORER. OUR projected overland journey from Melbourne to Sydney seemed to strike all our friends as a remarkable proceeding. They protested strongly against it some of them conjured up bushrangers, who, of course, were long extinct in " respectable Victoria," but were still to be met with in the crude unsettled districts of New South Wales. Others spoke of rough roads and bad accommodation; but in the end, finding us determined, they changed their friendly remonstrances into suggestions, one enthusiastic individual writing us out a voluminous list of articles required for travelling. This wonderful document, amongst a host of items, urged coils of rope, advised hatchets, counselled tin cans and soup-basins, proposed nails, hammers, and screw- wrenches, and above all things impressed upon us the necessity of taking feed for the horses and food for ourselves ! We set out on the ijth of March 1873. It is best to be precise, though our journey was perhaps less eventful than an exploration into the interior. Our procession swept out of Melbourne. First our big dog Uno, bounding and barking with joy ; then two of us riding on horseback ; then the coach with its white cover on the roof, its team of four-in-hand, and Patrick holding the reins with an air of great dignity ; and last, not least, the buggy, containing the respected persons of Pater and Mater. It was a hot-wind day. We had before us an implac- ably straight road, swept by a succession of dust-storms, which veneered horses, coach, and human beings with a white impalp- able powder. On each side spread long grassy plains, sprinkled with homesteads, hay and corn stores, small public-houses, and blacksmiths' forges. It was a dreary, dusty drive for the first twenty miles or so, after which we left the hot plain and came under the shelter of swelling wooded knolls. We rested at Kilmore, thirty-seven miles out, an agricultural 58 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. town, with 1600 of a population, mostly composed of Irishmen. Being St Patrick's Day, there was great celebration in Kilmore, two straggling, tuneless brass bands promenading the streets through the day, and a ball taking place in the evening. The town was further excited on the following morning by a trotting-match between a local pony and a presumptuous stranger mare which event had some hundreds of pounds staked upon it. Towards noon the revellers of the preceding night emerged from the various hotels and lolled about the street corners, their intelligences in a very dim twilight state. Most of them, however, were sober enough to bet upon the race one bemuddled man amusing us by persistently stuffing as his stake a handful of pound-notes into another's eye. In the afternoon the street was busy with the people returning from the race-course, the event having proved in favour of the Kilmore pony. The matter was on every tongue groups of people discussed it in the roadway horsemen stopped each other to congratulate or condole while one excited equestrian dashed breathlessly up the street, yelling out the good news to the open-mouthed shopkeepers, who popped out feverishly on each side as he passed. Then we went on to Seymour ; thence again some twenty- eight miles to Longwood, so called from the seemingly inter- minable forest that leads up to it. The day was warm, and the road wound through continuous tracks of white, barkless sap- lings. There were as a rule few human beings visible, save where we came upon a small hut, when a bevy of wild children, followed by a bronzed mother, would scamper out to see the passing vehicle. Some of these cottages were curiosities in their way. They were composed wholly of large sheets of bark tacked together with canvas, the culinary and domestic opera- tions being performed at the foot of the nearest tree. The inhabitants of these bark huts gain a livelihood by cutting and felling trees, which they cart in drays to the nearest township or railway station. Longwood seemed to the eye as if half-a- dozen cottages had sworn to a hotel and post-office that they would keep them company, and not leave them in the wilderness alone. From Longwood to Violet Town was a heavy drive through sandy tracks, with the dust spouting from the wheels. A hotel, store, and post-office, in one block of buildings, constituted the whole place. As the daylight faded the chilly wind blew in deep gusts from the dark forest, and camp fires blazed out in Overland from Melbourne to Sydney. 59 various quarters. A number of fanners from Major Plains, twenty-five miles distant, had encamped across the road from the hotel, and were busy boiling tea in large " billies " meat, fowls, and bread plentifully supplying this practical matter-of-fact pic-nic. The passages of the small hotel swarmed with large- bearded, red-faced bushmen, blue-nosed coach-drivers, and commercial travellers. Huge logs blazed and crackled cheer- fully in the large open fire-places. At dinner, we encountered some magnificent specimens of the colonial farmer one a tall, strong-built Irishman, who treated his left-hand companion, a member of Parliament, to a very lucid description and con- demnation of the Victorian Land Act, but who spoilt the effect and interest by declaring at the end that it cost him ^200 a year for his " nobblers " or drams, and that no man could possibly say he was earning a living who banked less than ^1000 per year. We had some difficulty in getting quarters here, as the hotel was full. One limited room was occupied by six low trestle- beds placed side by side, and filling up the entire floor, so that to reach his humble couch the furthest sleeper had to step over five beds. "Shake-downs" or mattresses were also laid down on the floors of the other rooms. As we had determined to sing in every place, large or small, we gave our entertainment here. The largest room in the hotel was arranged in imitation of a hall. The table became the platform, and all the chairs about the house were gathered together. The lounging benches that stood in the verandah were brought in; tub-stools came from the kitchen ; and rough pieces of timber, or halves of saplings, were laid on boxes with the rough, rounded side uppermost. By a little squeezing and good-humour on the part of the audience, a large number of people managed to get in. Most of them had come from many miles round. In all these country-places we used our "wee peeawny," as an old Scotsman called it. This was a square little instrument, four octaves and a half, made to our order by Wornum, of Store Street, London. Since then it has been all round the world been baked beneath the suns of Queensland, and frozen amid the snows of Canada been handled by Yankee " baggage- smashers" or railway-porters has tumbled off carts and fallen downstairs; and, in short, has conducted itself in a roving way, such as no piano, I am perfectly certain, ever did before. It served us well, and kept marvellously well in tune. We packed it in a canvas cover, with leather handles to it, so that two of 60 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. us could carry it. The three legs were previously screwed off and enshrined in green bags. Within three or four minutes from the final chorus of "Auld Lang Syne," the piano was strapped up ready to go on the back of the coach. We regarded it as a valuable member of our family. This township was a good sample of many others. They are all alike. You emerge from the bush into suburbs of stumps and felled trees, the first indications of progressing settlement then you catch sight of a brick store with a wooden verandah in front next, the humble post-office finally, the low-roofed wooden hotel, with a swinging signboard, a group of coach passengers or riders, and horses fastened to the hitching-posts or railings. You pass these and come again into the vicinity of stumps ; you cross a creek on a little bridge which is painted white to make it visible in the dark; then you disappear once more in the solitude of the trees. These town- ships are as much bush-girt as islands are sea-girt. The hotel yard next morning was full of Cobb's mail-coaches, bound for various parts of the country. Soon with a clatter and a rush the coaches left. We had intended following the mail for the purpose of obtaining the shortest route to Benalla, but the information which we received about the road was so precise, so minute, and so intelligible, that we determined to proceed upon our own responsibility. This ended in our being lost five hundred yards from the town. We wandered for miles without seeing face or habitation, dashing on in great anxiety, losing tracks and finding fresh ones, till we struck a small hamlet. Here we gained some more precise and minute information, which sent us through innumerable paddocks with immense slip-panels, every individual bar of which had to be carefully taken out and replaced upon' each occasion. We made a journey of seventeen miles extend to one of thirty. Near Oxley, some few miles from Benalla, there was an encampment of blacks, and a company of four children and two women soon introduced themselves. One of the lubras was old, and very black, but with a blacker eye, which she had received during a recent " corroboree " or committee meeting of the natives. This assembly takes place once a month at every full moon. The old, plump, black woman had the usual flat nose, but it seemed to have acquired flatness beyond that of nature's bestowing. Her hair was long-and glossy, and she was dressed in loosely-tacked corn-sacks. The other lubra was younger, and had white pearly teeth ; she carried a baby BeechivortJi. 61 slung over her back, the little one fast asleep. The children were from six to twelve years old, and scampered about in costumes that seemed only a formal yielding to social require- ments. The aboriginals are made to work at the Oxley Hotel, where we were staying, but they are somewhat lazy ; and it was amusing to see the length of time they took to clean a candle- stick, shake a hearthrug, or wash a plate. They presented us with a live opossum, which we kept as a pet for weeks after- wards. It was quite tame, It used to climb our knees, jump on the top of our heads, hang by its tail from our forefinger, scamper about the house, and scramble up window-curtains. It was, of course, no favourite of the landlady we had in Sydney, and one day we found it curled up dead, evidently poisoned, in a corner of our room. We visited Wangaratta, and then went on to Beechworth. For some hours we went over a mangled and mutilated road, recently swept by floods of rain. Then the country began to rise, and we commenced the eight-mile hill, or series of hills, which lead up to Beechworth, and which seemed, in our ignor- ance of the road, to be endless. We almost expected to see a thunder-cloud trailing along the main street, or driving mists obscuring shops and houses. Beechworth is the chief town of the extensive Ovens and Murray District, and stands some 2000 feet above Melbourne, which is 185 miles distant. The air is pure and bracing. It is thought that when communication is facilitated, Beechworth will be greatly resorted to by those whose constitutions have been weakened by the warmer climates of Melbourne and similar low-lying districts. There is little if anything of digging to be seen. The only instance of gold- research we came upon was two Chinamen puddling away in a yellow debilitated creek, which humbly crept, as if in fear of being caught intruding, through a steep gully, the sloping sides of which glistened with glazed boulders and masses of volcanic stone. This ravine meets you just upon entering the town, and strikes the key-note to the general appearance of the country in this district, which is rugged, picturesque, and said to be rich in mineral wealth beyond that of gold. Leaving Beechworth, an abrupt turn of the road brought us in sight of Yackandandah, lying far below in a level plain. This portion of the country goes by the name of the Valley of the Murray, and is famed for vine-growing. The landscape was thickly dotted with luxuriant vineyards, laid out in long symmetrical rows, and gleaming with the rich yellow tints of 62 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. autumn. Orchards, too, are numerous, and fruit plentiful to a degree, cartloads of peaches having rotted away in heaps by the roadside. Between Yackandarrdah and Chiltern we came across a troublesome piece of road known as the " Gap," consisting of a steep precipitous rough-made track, winding down the side of a hill. It is the bugbear of the district. After long suspense we reached the level ground, but had scarcely gone twenty yards when the " kingbolt " of the coach (the pivot run down through the front axle) snapped in two, and with a crash the pole flew up into" the air, smashing one of the horses' mouths, and elevating the swingle-bar high above the leader's back. With the greatest difficulty the animals were brought to a stand-still, and had it not been for two strong supplementary leather belts round the axle, the horses would have departed at full speed with a legacy of wheels. After half-an-hour's leverage with poles and saplings, we put in a spare bolt which we carried with us, and resumed our journey. Two days after leaving Chiltern we crossed the Murray at Wahgunyah. In nautical phraseology we were twenty-three days out, and we gave a cheer as we passed into New South Wales. Eastward, on the north bank of the Murray, we drove forty-one -miles to Albury, bowling along in an exhilarating manner, now and then startling great mobs of horses, who would snort and kick up their heels preparatory to a glorious stampede through the bush, and ofttimes charging through a herd of cows, who in turn would lower their heads with a look of courage, and then turn tail and amble ingloriously into a ditch. Albury is the largest town on the River Murray, and has a population of 2000. Its principal industry is the manufacture of wines, and the fame of Albury has spread on bottle-labels from one end of Australia to the other. Near the river, upon an open space of ground, is erected a graceful marble obelisk to the memory of Mr Hamilton Hume, who discovered the River Murray in 1824, during his famous expedition from Sydney to Port Phillip. Our hotel accommodation in Albury was none of the best. Exteriorly, the building looked first class, and the interior was also excellent. But the people owning the hotel were marked parvenus. The hotel seemed to be in reality a place for the comfortable residence of the landlord and his family, the guests being continually in the way, and tolerated only as an unavoidable and inconvenient Overland from Melbourne to Sydney. 63 way of making money. Our "farewell" to the hotel had a touch of gladness in it. We are off now to Wagga Wagga, ninety miles north. It is a hard two days' journey, but the horses are fresh and well- rested. We make a start as usual in the early morning ; all the forenoon we wind monotonously through endless sheep- runs, with no companions but the tuneful magpies and occasional clusters of sheep. At midday we pull up at a creek and camp for a couple of hours. We unharness the horses, and tie them to the trees round about us then one of us runs down to the creek to fetch water, another spreads a white cloth on a sloping bank, and a third scrapes together chips, twigs, pieces of bark, and miscellaneous tinder, making a blazing fire against a tree stump. By this time the supplies are out of the coach a cosmopolitan diet of canned meats sardines from Paris, herring from Aberdeen, oysters from Baltimore, and currant- jelly from Hobart Town, Tasmania. While we are occupied with these, the "billy" is bubbling on the fire, and another large can is simmering with potatoes. The horses are busy crunching their maize ; our driver is bedding up the fire with logs, and fanning it with his old slouched hat. He makes us some capital tea, which we enjoy with the hot potatoes. Then we stretch ourselves out in the shade, and enjoy a short dreamy siesta, for the day is warm. In half an hour we are up and bustling about, folding our tablecloth, collecting our tin pannikins, hooking our pail and billies to the back of the coach, collecting the horse-feed, and harnessing the horses. We are careful, too, to put out the fire there is a heavy fine inflicted on any one who leaves anything burning in the bush. The grass is dry, and a spark sometimes will set it ablaze. A brief look round to see that nothing is left, and we are off. Still the same wearisome scenery trees, trees, trees every- where new vistas opening in front, and vistas fading away behind us. The track was ever winding you had sometimes peeps of it far away ahead, but the trees would stalk in one by one and hide it ; then it would appear once more in a fresh place, and we could see by the strange direction it went that we had many a bend and curve to make before we overtook it. Towards the close of the afternoon, the sun sinking lower in the sky ribbed the track with the long shadows of the trees, and glanced brightly at us through the openings in the foliage. Then the far-off timber seemed to rise and shut out the sunset, the track becoming suddenly dusky, and silence settling on us 64 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. all at once. In the midst of the quiet we kept watching the evolutions of the track, and as it slid about we personified it into some obstinate unearthly sprite or other, and we could almost imagine it chuckling at us during some of its more erratic moments. We had wished to reach the Billabong Creek by dusk, but at last regarded it as hopeless. Then a loud shrieking laugh burst out of the bush on our left. It was the vespers of the jackass-birds a hideous discordant chorus. When this batch finished, another family of them took it up, a little further off; then another further still, and another, and yet another, till the laughs died away in the distance. Then came the faint tinkle of a bell, nearer and nearer, till at last we met a cloud of dust, out of which evolved a bullock-dray and driver. " Far from Billabong ? " " No ; a few miles." On again, poor sweaty, dusty team, and tired dusty passengers ; there's a chance for you yet ; and there's the moon just shining over the tree tops ; and there, oh happiness ! is a light glimmer- ing ahead. Here at last is the solitary settler's house. Invis- ible dogs bark and howl at us from every point of the compass. We knock ! silence there is no one at home. We hitch the horses up to a cattle-pen, and wait the arrival of the folks. On the other side of the creek a large fire is blazing, and round it a number of Wagga Wagga men, who have recently been driv- ing bullocks to Melbourne, and are now returning after six weeks' journey. They come to the creek-side and pray across to us for only one thing they want but little here below, and that little is butter, which we feelingly throw over to them in a piece of paper. By the light of the moon we see two women approaching the house ; questioning them, we find they have visitors, and can only accommodate the ladies. The males "camp out" a romantic. and manly feat in this clear, fine weather. We put the horses into a pen ; then make a tent close by with a sheet of canvas, spreading a couch of straw and rushes, and covering them over with rugs and cushions from the coach. This makes an airy bedroom, and the moon shines brilliantly through the sheeting. Oppressed with a general sense of quietness and straw flavour, and soothed by a lullaby of tail-whisking and hay-munching at our ears, we fall asleep, but are rudely awakened next minute by Patrick, who tells us to get up. It is five o'clock A.M. " next minute " has lengthened to seven long hours. It is still dark ; the moon is low down on the horizon ; the morning is cold and raw ; and there is a brisk fire with a billy on it our breakfast. We seize Wagga V/agga. 65 the opportunity of the remaining moonlight to water the horses in the creek not by any means an easy job, two of them escap- ing up the opposite bank, and keeping us breathless till they come back neighing for their companions. The moon has now given place to a feeble streak of daylight, and we are greeted by the mocking laugh of the jackass-birds, this time put to the blush by a civilised cock, who crows a most prodigious blast As we depart we wave a mute farewell to our Wagga friends across the creek, whose fire by this time is faint and flickering. This day is like the last, dull and fatiguing. We have a midday camp as before, and a weary drive in the after- noon. We meet a man about five in the evening, who tells us we are three miles from Wagga. We hurry on, crossing a wooden bridge spanning the Murrumbidgee, and in the twink- ling of an eye we are in the main street of the town amidst cheerily-lighted shops and a Saturday-night pavement crowd. Wagga Wagga lies midway between Melbourne and Sydney, and is the metropolis of a wilderness. It is absolutely isolated from any, even the smallest township. Albury lies ninety miles south, Gundagai sixty-five miles east. Hay is the nearest township to the westward, but it is distant 140 miles as the crow flies ; while northward there exists nothing but scattered settlements, with which there is no regular com- munication whatever. A person wonders at a town existing in such a lonely part of the country, but it is in reality an emporium for the convenience of the wealthy squatters resid- ing in the neighbourhood. North, south, east, and west their large tracts of country run, the richest and most extensive in *the colony; and it is quite refreshing to get hold of some enthusiastic inhabitant of Wagga, and hear him roll off the thousands of acres possessed by Mr Black, and the miles of territory owned by Mr White. The wives and daughters of these rich landowners make inroads into Wagga Wagga upon the receipt of the latest fashions from Melbourne or Sydney ; while their lords and masters support local races, public balls, meetings, and charitable entertainments. There are some fine churches in the town the Church of England, Wesleyan, and Presbyterian, having each a place of worship. Besides the places of worship, there are other public buildings. There is the Masonic Hall, said to be the largest concert-room out of Melbourne, with a sumptuous proscenium, and a stage loaded with scenery. There are, however, scarcely any seats, and persons using the hall are compelled to place 66 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. planks over barrels, boxes, and brandy cases a style of seat- ing very laughable in such a pretentious structure. Another public building, which is among the " lions " shown to the visitor, is the hut once inhabited by the Tichborne claimant. The mean-looking hovel, now rented by a tinsmith, is jammed in between a larger shanty and a public-house in one of the by-streets. As a matter of course, you find the usual persons who parasitically attach themselves to famous or notorious characters. Smith knew the Claimant, and so did Grazing Tommy ; Bilkins supped with him, and Wilkins drank with him ; Barber Brown had his butcher meat from him for years ; Robinson worked with him for months on end ; as for Jones, you might almost say he lived with him ; and, in fact, they all knew him, and a rare good fellow he was. It would surprise even "Tichborne" himself to know the number of bosom friends he left in Wagga Wagga. On the way to Gundagai we were kindly invited by a squatter to spend the night at his house. Our journey from this station next morning was one of the most dangerous we had yet ex- perienced. The private path leading to the main road had never been travelled by a coach and horses before, and ought never to have been, for the country was altogether unfit for conveyances of any sort. Deep gullies, rocky precipitous banks, and morasses covered with long waving grass followed each other in constant succession. At one time the wheels were covered almost over the axles with mud and water, and at another the coach was tilting on one of numerous acute sidelings; while the steep gullies would send vehicle and horses bundling together into awkward narrow creeks, which neces- sitated vigorous struggles to regain terra firma. This lasted. for a number of miles, during which our driver Patrick coolly whistled his Irish airs, though he confessed afterwards to being somewhat frightened. Gundagai is an extraordinarily clean-looking place, perched upon a hill-side, looking down upon some flats. These were marked with deep furrows caused by the heavy trunks of trees borne down by the floods. The flats are crossed by a bridge, three-quarters of a mile long, including the approaches upon either side. This bridge, which cost ^45,000, connects North and South Gundagai, and is much appreciated in the winter time, when the water rises to the level of the footpath. Gundagai as at present seen is Gundagai No. 2 Gundagai No. i, which was situated upon these flats, having been totally TJie Funeral of an Explorer. 67 destroyed by a fearful flood in 1852. A young squatter here gave us a reminiscence of the calamity. " It was an awful time," said he. "My father acted as minister of the place, and read the burial service over forty-five persons. Our house only escaped by a miracle. We had to stand on the window-sill with poles, and stave off the big trees and rubbish. But the logs kept battering against the house, and letting in the water. For a long time we could hear the chairs and tables washing about inside, and our grand piano bumping in every direction. Then after a bit the house fell away piecemeal, and it was all we could do to escape with our lives." Yass, another town further east, was reached by a weary, weary drive of two days. There was no incident to lighten the journey, save when we came suddenly upon a large open glade covered thickly over with a dense flock of cockatoos, chattering away in undisturbed seclusion. When we broke in upon them, they rose in a large white cloud, circling and shrieking, and latterly flew to the shelter of the forest, where they clustered thick as orange blossom on the trees. Yass is built upon the borders of Yass Plains, a series of undulating downs, covered with rich grass, which, when we saw it, was somewhat browned by the sun. The sights of the town are its fine public buildings, the River Yass, and the great iron bridge which spans the river. The town is now fully fifty years old, and has that settled appearance which age of necessity brings. This half-a- century existence is unknown south of the Murray, and was a new thing to us. The first person who travelled Yass Plains was Hamilton Hume, the explorer ; he discovered this portion of the country during his famous expedition. For many years he resided in quiet seclusion at Yass, spending his old age in a neat rustic cottage, fondly pointed out to strangers by the inhabitants, who entertained for him high esteem and reverence. Strange to say, the moment we were entering Yass, the funeral of the venerable explorer was leaving it for the cemetery, which lay outside the town. The hearse was followed by forty vehicles, buggies, farmers' carts, light waggons, and carriages, belonging to doctors, squatters, hotel-keepers, shop-keepers, and tradesmen generally, the rear of the procession being brought up by a hundred horsemen, riding in couples, and representing even more fully every class of society, from the rough uncultivated bushman to the landed aristocrat. The spectacle was one of great interest, and approached the historical. Most of the 68 Kennedy's Colonial Travel. shops in the town were shut up, and the place altogether was straining every nerve to show respect. A day's journey brought us to Goulburn, where we took the train to Sydney, a journey of 130 miles. All night we went booming over bridges, thundering through tunnels, and dashing between cuttings ninety feet high. The day dawns upon a landscape of villas and old-established houses. On we go, past chimney-stalks, manufactories, straggling streets, and stray steeples ; through suburban stations, with busy porters and early business men. At last we see through morning mist a grey expanse of houses, and in a few moments are landed at the Sydney station. This ended our six weeks' overland trip, during which we travelled over 500 -miles. CHAPTER VI. SYDNEY AND SYDNEY HARBOUR. SYDNEY, the capital of the vast colony of New South Wales, is eighty-eight years old. The first expedition landed in 1788, and chose the now world-famed Botany Bay as the site of the new settlement. Port Jackson, however, was afterwards found more suitable, which can readily be believed, as no better har- bour has been discovered in the colonies. Entering from the sea, you pass through the Heads, two high precipitous cliffs, the southern point crowned by a lighthouse. The sea rolls through, and .breaks on a headland inside. The steamer you are in appears to be running upon the rocks, when the South Head moves past and discloses the full sweep of the harbour to the left, the view more resembling the windings of some mighty river than the ramifications of an inlet of the sea. After steam- ing for four miles you arrive opposite Sydney, which lies on the southern shore, street rising above street, with spires and steeples, the water's edge lined with high warehouses, Government buildings, and Customs offices, which are almost hidden by the dense fringe of shipping along the quays and wharves. Sydney is three and a half miles long, and three miles wide. The population, inclusive of the suburbs, is 134,758. George Street and Pitt Street are the chief thoroughfares, and were named after George III. and his Prime Minister. They run parallel with each other, and are intersected by King, Hunter, and Market Streets. Generally speaking, the thoroughfares of Sydney are narrow, cramping the traffic and crowding foot- passengers. "Yes, yes," a citizen said to us, "our streets are no doubt far from wide, but see the advantage in point of shade!" You feel nervous about the wheels of your vehicle, or the legs of your horse if you are riding. On the pavements of Pitt Street, you are either elbowing plate-glass windows or slipping off the kerb-stones. George Street is far more modern in appearance, and has a newer portion of commendable width. You feel the buildings would show to better advantage if you 70 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. could get a few feet further from them; they always seem to overshadow you. Sydney is a condensed city. The narrow- ness of the streets is perhaps to be accounted for by the practical, matter-of-fact nature of the first settlement, and the limiting influence of the water-frontage, the city being built upon a kind of peninsula, surrounded by indentations of the harbour. There are portions of Sydney that remind the stranger of familiar home streets; terraces and blocks of buildings that resemble the older fashionable squares of London or Edinburgh ; while some of the by-streets are long, narrow, tortuous, and dirty, full of antiquated houses, with flights of coarse boulder-like steps. We took lodgings in Wynyard Square, a locality of boarding- houses, boarding-hotels, and white-porched private dwellings. Our landlady was as smirking as possible, with excessively fashion- able daughters. She was generally agreeable, but upon any dis- paraging remark being made as to the size or quality of chop or steak, she flared up as to her high birth, and wondered what her ancestors would have thought of this keeping of boarders ! We have not been long in Sydney before we bestir ourselves for sight-seeing. The first building that strikes us is the fine new Post-Office, with its high granite-pillared front. Then we walk along George Street, passing giant warehouses, large insurance offices, and the chief hotels of the city. We come to a wider portion of the thoroughfare, near the market. Here th^re is life. We see a stream of traffic, with every description of vehicle. We see a blind man groping along with outstretched palm, and a card, " Sight lost by blast in gold mine ; " a man selling sixpenny maps of New South Wales ; boys shouting the daily papers, " 'Airuld " and " Empi-i-re ! " and a manual fire- engine, " No. 2," hauled by one horse, going off to some smoky chimney. What a splendid structure that is on our right, with a lofty symmetrical tower ! " Boy, what is the name of this large building?" " Tow Nail, sir." The Town Hall? This then is the pride of Sydney, the theme of every one's conversa- tion. It has a good deal of confectionery ornament about it, and no massiveness, but is possessed of great beauty. Look ! a heavily-built fashionable carriage rumbles past, a relic of a bygone generation; then a neat private two-horse carriage; hullo, it's a hackney cab, a cab for hire ! how clean and tidy it looks ! See ! would you recognise in that fresh, shining, new- cushioned, hansom-cab, your old friend the London convey- ance ? No ; not a bit of it. We meet a Scotsman, an official in the Mint, who takes us through the building. Passing an The Sydney J\!int. 71 armed patrol at the door, we enter the furnace-room, where we are as interested as chemical smells will allow us. In another department, machines flatten bars of gold into thin plates, which are then punched into circular unstamped coin. We see one man take a pot full of sovereigns from the annealing furnace, cool them in water, and dry them in a sieve of sawdust. Some of the pieces fall out and roll into corners, but he takes no notice, and goes on shaking the remainder. There are no cracks in the floor. Another man sits at the die-press with a fortune in a tray, and some hundreds of blank coins in a drawer beside him. We are quite bewildered in this room with elaborate machines machines that seem to think machines with long brass fingers that poise the sovereigns, weigh them, and drop them into one of three openings, " light," " heavy," and " true." Strange to say, with all the improvements, ten to fifteen per cent, of the sovereigns have to be re-melted, and fifty to seventy per cent, of the half-sovereigns. The Scotsman who shows us round mentions that the workmen are of good character, and treat the gold as an ordinary metal. He spoils the sentiment, however, by immediately proving to us the impossibility of any of the hands stealing. They each get a certain amount of gold to operate upon, accompanied with a slip of paper stating the purpose and value. This slip the workman returns to the office, along with the exact weight of gold in sovereigns or otherwise. Those of the men whose work causes necessarily an escape of gold-dust have half-an- hour allowed them to sweep the floor and make up their weight. Then we drive out to Randwick, a suburb, where we go through the Asylum for Destitute Children, an institution which stands on an elevated airy site. We see ward after ward, and row after row, of clean little white beds ; view a host of young folks at dinner ; hear the capital band of the institution playing in the quadrangle garden ; walk into the hot-smelling kitchen, savoury with immense soup, beef, and vegetable cauldrons ; and finish our visit at the playground a swarming jubilant scene of jollity and gymnastics. There is a splendid race- course at Randwick, much patronized by the governor, Sir Hercules Robinson. In the evening we visit the School of Arts in Pitt Street an institution possessing an exhaustive library, an extensive reading- room, and a capacious hall, in which latter we sang for seven weeks in Sydney. Going down the street about eleven o'clock 72 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. at night, we see a public-house and oyster-saloon still open, with a vagrant band playing in front, the gaslight sending the shadows of the performers looming up against the closed windows and shutters of the buildings across the way. Turning from Pitt Street to George Street, we come into a quieter neigh- bourhood no flaring taverns, no open shops. We see a dim cab-rank, with the dark figure of a perched-up driver dozing over his hansom a phantom policeman statuesque at a corner a spectre billsticker putting up on a dead wall the sheets of a large poster ; and a string of sailors, arm in arm, spread over the pavement, shouting capstan choruses. There are 120 churches in Sydney. Our lodgings were close to Church Hill, a rising ground, owing its name to the number of sacred edifices clustered round it. Every Sunday morning bells rang out in great variety of tone. One chime, about ten o'clock, ere the other peals set in, floated out sonorously the melodies of psalm and hymn tunes. Of the Presbyterian churches Dr Lang's is the oldest the " Scots Kirk," as it is called, an ancient building with a stunted short spire and a very uncomfortable interior. The foundation-stone was laid on the 3oth November 1833. Dr Steele's church is an iron one, made and used in Glasgow, then exported to Sydney. The Rev. Mr Thomson's church is well built and very spacious ; but as the worthy clergyman had lately been created the Principal of a newly-formed St Andrew's College, Dr Steele preaches in his stead, the two congregations uniting in the more substantial building. The town churches are not so flourishing as one would expect. People say the congregations have drifted to the suburbs. The Rev. Dr M'Gibbon's church in Wooloomoo- loo had been recently built to accommodate the outlying popu- lation, and has been so far successful. There is, too, a healthy congregation in Balmain, under the Rev. Mr Cosh, a spirited worker, lately missionary in the South Sea Islands. We were invited by the veteran Dr Lang to take tea with him, and we had a most interesting evening. We were carried away back in the annals of Australia. The Doctor's talk was of a bygone generation of the early strifes, politics, separa- tions, Parliaments, and Governors of the colonies. He came to Sydney in the month of May 1823, and ever since has identified himself with New South Wales ; the review of his career would almost be that of the colony. He has been in Parliament, and mixed in the heat of politics ; he resigned his seat in the Legislative Assembly about the close of 1872. The Public Gardens of Sydney. 73 The separations of Victoria in 1851, and Queensland in 1859, were a great deal due to the unflagging energy of Dr Lang, who has also been foremost in the cause of immigration. Though an old man over seventy, he still takes part in public affairs, and is now preparing a fresh edition of his excellent History of Neiv South Wales, one of the numerous works he has written on the colonies. On Sunday evening we went to St Andrew's Cathedral, Church of England, situated in George Street, where we heard a most excellent service. In King Street is a dingy brick building, one of the most fashionable places of worship in Sydney St James's Church, to which I saw the Governor and his lady driving in an open carriage. Pitt Street boasts a large Independent Chapel, which has a popular preacher and a crowded attendance, the body of the church and the immense gallery that surrounds it being always densely thronged. The public parks of Sydney are unequalled. Hyde Park is a reserve of some forty acres almost in the centre of the town, adorned with a statue of Captain Cook, the foundation-stone of which was laid by the Duke of Edinburgh. The more recently-formed reserves are the Prince Alfred Park, Belmore Park, and Moore Park, the latter occupying 500 acres to the south-east. A short time ago this park was legally reclaimed to the town by a Mr Moore, then mayor of Sydney, the land having been regarded as the property of an influential capitalist. The Domain is a charming piece of ground, 138 acres in extent, on the banks of an inlet entitled Farm Cove. The Botanical Gardens, close to it, have been established for thirty- five years. They are positively lovely, with their bewildering profusion of palms, bananas, cactuses, fern-trees, and an infinite variety of tropical plants. Tasteful gravel walks wind about the grounds and skirt the dark blue waters of the little bay. Really a place to dream in, on a sunny day, under the shadows of the broad-leafed vegetation ; with perhaps a trick- ling fountain on one hand, a rustic bridge on the other, and avenues stretching away before you to still further shady seclusion. As to Sydney Harbour, the praises of it rang in our ears when we first landed in the colonies, and we heard accounts of it from all sources in all kinds of places. We soon went to see the much-talked-of wonder. At first we craned our necks from the top-storey window of our lodgings, but we could only see a small triangular patch of water almost filled up with the masts 74 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. and yards of ships. And yet our landlady claimed a View. Every hotel and lodging-house, if it commands but a speck of water, advertises a View. We even saw one or two houses overlooking the harbour on tiptoe that is, with about twelve feet of solid masonry as a foundation, and the front door reached by a narrow flight of steps. In Melbourne, people demand your opinion of the city. In Sydney they ask, "What do you think of the Situation?" Had it a political significance they would not ask it with more earnestness. "What about the situation? Have you been down to the harbour to get the View ? Have you been right up to the tip-top of the lighthouse and seen the View? Have you been over to the North Shore and gazed at the View ? Have you been in one of our steam ferry-boats and seen the View?" A sail round the harbour and a pic-nic in one of its hundred pleasure grounds ! What could be more delightful ? A kind, attentive Sydney friend proposed and projected this, getting together an enjoyable company of folks, and chartering a small steam launch of ten tons burthen, which one forenoon awaited us at a convenient point of Darling Harbour, on the western side of the town. The sky was clear, with not the faintest fleck of cloud a state of the atmosphere very common in this part of the world, almost worth travelling 12,000 miles to see. I believe it would pay Mr Cook to project Excursions to the Blue Skies of Australia and Back. The water also was a deep blue, not only afar off, but blue even to where it lapped the stone steps of the quay ; dipping it up with your hand, you almost felt disappointed to find it colourless. After we had seated ourselves on the cushioned seats in the stern of the launch, the fore-part was loaded with boxes of provisions. We went up as far as Cockatoo Island, famous for its Fitzroy Dry Dock, a Government establishment for overhauling and repairing vessels, where we saw a French man-of-war on the stocks. Then we turned eastward again, passing Davves Point, with its battery of a few guns ; Sydney Cove, with its important circular quay, 3100 feet long, constructed by convict labour ; and Farm Cove, a charming bay, backed by the Botanical Gardens and the elegant residence of the Governor. Here were a number of small craft fitting out for the suppression of the slave trade in the South Sea Islands. Passing " Lady Macquarie's Chair," a stone seat carved out of the solid rock, we sailed through Watson's Bay ; then doubled the rocky point on which the sea breaks coming through the Heads, Sydney Harbour. 75 once the scene of a terrible shipwreck, with no survivors. Our little steamer tumbled about here, but we soon got into smooth water in the Middle Harbour, the high-wooded banks of which resembled the scenery of the River Hudson in America. We had a glimpse of Manly Beach, styled by Sydney folks " the Brighton of Australia," and Clontarf, the pleasure-garden where the Duke of Edinburgh was shot by O'Farrell our sail conclud- ing in Pearl Bay, where the steamer rasped and grounded some distance from the shore. A boat came off and took the ladies round a projecting point. Then one of the gentlemen swam about, viewed the situation, and got on the rock along with a brother sansculotte. Both set to work pushing off, those on board canting the vessel over, till at last the launch slid away, one of the gentlemen clinging to the gunwale, and the other being left a knee-deep, melancholy, shivering white figure. When the boat came, he was right glad to be relieved, as for most of the time he had been standing on oysters. Safely landed, we beheld a table on shore spread with every imaginable delicacy a sumptuous feast, which was discussed amid laughs over our adventure, exclamations as to the beauty of the day, and admiration of the lonely loveliness of the scenery. After thijee ringing cheers for our host, we all got on board again, arriving at Sydney in the twilight. On a later occasion we went round the harbour fortifications, constructed after the plans of Sir William Denison. There are two batteries on the Middle Head, with seven 68-pounders at a height of 107 feet ; at Bradley's Head there are three guns at a height of ninety feet, and at another point six guns at a height of 200 feet. These are on the northern shore, but there are also fortifications near the South Head, with long sunken trenches of masonry for the safety of the gunners. Nor must we forget the walks around the harbour. The best of these is the South Head Road, which takes high ground and leads to the lighthouse, following the windings of the bays a nice, smooth, red, sandy road commanding the unsurpassable View. There is another walk down by the shore from Sydney Cove to Woolloomooloo Bay, constructed by order of Lady Macquarie about the beginning of the century, almost equal to the former road in point of beauty. A third walk can be had in the Domain close to the town. The South Head Road is for an extended airy horse-ride, Lady Macquarie's walk for a stroll, and the Domain for a fashionable drive. Oh, the strolls, the 76 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. rides, the drives ! leaving the smoke, noise, and crowd of the city, and in a few minutes breathing suburban air on the heights around Port Jackson, with the endless minute beauties of the harbour combined into one grand picture. Before you stretch lovely bays, rimmed with beaches of dark yellow sand miniature capes, headlands, and peninsulas, furry with shrubbery or velvety with lawns. Elegant mansions are shining out in the strong sunlight the water is smooth and dotted with vessels, some being tugged out to the Heads, some sailing in under easy canvas, some lying moored off the different points of land. The harbour is spacious, but you have never the idea of a bare expanse of water. The opposite shore is always near. You can recognise this house and that house you can see horsemen riding and vehicles running you can almost distinguish the people stepping into the ferry-boats. One sunny afternoon a gentleman drove us down to the Domain, and upon reaching a part overlooking " Lady Mac- quarie's Chair," he drew up and sat silent. Other vehicles arrived, and the folks ogled one another, looking deeply inter- ested. We asked what it all meant, and were told this was the " gazing place of the fashionables," where they assemble in fine weather, and take stock of each other while ostensibly viewing the harbour. There is one thing you make note of before you have been three days in Sydney the number of middle-aged people who have been reared in the colony, whose fathers were born in it. Considering the length of time that New South Wales has been established, there is nothing strange in this ; but jt seems pecu- liar after experience of Melbourne, where nearly every mature man carries about with him the date of his arrival in Australia. Walking Sydney streets you miss the Chinese flavour in the crowd ; John seems to have no foothold, no opening for his specialities as in Melbourne. You see a preponderance of the Jewish cast of countenance. In Sydney, also, there is an old established criminal class, which Melbourne, being a younger city, does not possess. This sediment, this vicious substrata of society, is very appreciable, both in the streets and in police reports ; a Sydney crowd can muster its roughs with any place we have seen. There is one deplorable character to be met with, the "larrikin," who is indigenous to the colonies gener- ally, though Melbourne is more particularly his home. He is a wild youth, a creature bred by the absence of parental con- trol a lower-class youth, but not necessarily very poor, very The Suburbs of Sydney. 77 wretched, or very young. You would not know him if I were to call him a street arab, a rowdy, or one of the " great un- washed." Like some foreign phrases, he is untranslatable. His misdeeds are unique, and excel those of inebriated medical students in bygone days. The larrikins, in gangs of twenty and thirty, break street-lamps, wrench off knockers, tear down fences, mob and maltreat policemen, hustle respectable people at noon-day, and at night assault some sober citizen and rob him. Taken in a mouthful, this reads like exaggeration, but scarce a week passes without some larrikin outbreak. Even while writing these lines, I see by the newspapers that a band of youths in Maryborough, Queensland, broke through the windows of a schoolroom, smashed up the forms and desks, split up every penholder with a knife, poured the ink bottles over the maps, ripped up the large globes, and did damage to the amount of ^40 sterling. The larrikin nuisance has become a deep social question. Sydney folks delight in holiday-making. We were in Sydney on the Queen's Birthday, and beheld the people in their pleasure-garb. We seem to see yet the smiling faces, the gay dresses, the baskets of provisions, the good humour of the crowds wending their way to the steamboats or packing them- selves into omnibuses. Steamers moved in and out, freighted with their hundreds. The ships in the harbour fluttered with flags cannon fired from the batteries church bells rang banners waved from the hotels and public buildings. Crowded vehicles were driving off to Botany Bay, Bondi, or Coogee Bay, with hampers of eatables roped behind. Horsemen and pedes- trians were travelling to see the grand review of 1700 volunteers in Moore Park. Sydney went out of town in a whirl of gaiety. There are eleven suburbs. Newtown, Glebe, Waterloo, Redfern, and Woolloomooloo are situated close to Sydney, and connected with it by ligaments of streets. Balmain is a high picturesque suburb, occupying a point of land, with streets sloping down to the harbour, and peopled chiefly by the middle classes. The principal work here is Mort's dry dock, 365 feet long, and 70 feet wide, which employs, with a large shipbuilding yard, nearly 800 men. The other suburbs are Paddington, two miles east, possessing the large Victoria Barracks; Randwick, with its race- course and asylum ; Camperdown, three miles up the Parramatta Road; Burwood, a railway station six miles distant; and Hunter's Hill, a fashionable resort on the Parramatta River. Parramatta, distant fifteen miles from the metropolis, is too Kennedy's Colonial Travel. far off to be considered a suburb, even if it had not a municipal and historical importance. It is an old town, settled in 1790 under the title of Rose Hill. The town lies in a hollow sur- rounded by low knolls. The streets are wide, the houses old, and the whole place quaint. Not a few spires are visible, some new, some ancient, and about the oldest is the square-built castellated tower of the Presbyterian Church, a plain building with a good congregation. The hotel we lived at was a family hotel. Tropical plants surrounded the house, and a rich orange tree was pushing its way into our bedroom window. And talking of oranges, who has not heard of the golden fruit of Parramatta ? The orange groves are a sight to see long straight rows of small trees speckled with flaring yellow fruit, drawing down the boughs with their abundance, and filling the air with fragrance the oranges delicious to look at, but still more pleasant to be plucked fresh from the tree, and tasted in all their pure beady juiciness. In Sydney we were favoured at first with fine weather. Then came a change gloomy days, rainy nights, accounts of floods, coach accidents, and delayed mails. This was followed by bright skies again. And so the pleasant days wore on, till we left the old, grey, historical, rapidly-modernising city, and sailed for Brisbane. CHAPTER VII. BRISBANE THE WILDS OF QUEENSLAND THE GYMPIE GOLD FIELD THE QUEENSLAND BLACKS. IN July of 1873, we sailed from Sydney to Brisbane. Steam- boat life is the same here as at home. You have the same close cabins and saloon, the same red velvet-cushioned seats, the same sickly-smelling zinc-covered stairs, the same stokers, and the same broad-speaking Glasgow engineer but not the same captain. The Australian skipper is a distinct species of being there is nothing at all sailor-like in his appearance. When you have singled out from the crowd on the wharf some stout florid commercial traveller, and said to yourself, " That is the captain," behold ! a meagre gentleman in a black coat, a white shirt-front, a coloured necktie, and a straw hat, steps on board and shouts his orders to the un-nautical crew. You are also astonished at the mate, with his trim suit, trim whiskers, rings, and gold chain, and you are equally amazed at being served by stewards with elegant moustaches and hair parted down the middle. Sydney to Brisbane is a distance of 500 miles, which took us fifty-four hours not a very high rate of speed. We left at six o'clock in the evening, and rose in the morning to a fine sea- picture. The sky was blue and cloudless. The scenery was bold and mountainous. The coast was outlined in foam. The green seas were breaking upon the shore, washing and swirling round the rocks, climbing up the shaded sides of the cliffs, and bursting in the sunshine on the summit into clearmasses of spray. Scores of porpoises leapt about the ship an exciting, inspirit- ing scene. The journey on the whole was pleasant, and the passengers agreeable. We became acquainted with a young Melbourne gentleman, and contrived to pass the time with him in interesting discussions. His doctrines, however, were some- what unique, and he maintained his views in a lofty philan- thropical manner, supporting his arguments as if they were so many paupers. Between us we effectually disposed of the 8o Kennedy s Colonial Travel. National Debt, the Land Question, and the Divine Right of Kings. The captain was genial, though at table he proved himself a perfect Munchausen, pouring into unsuspecting ears the most absurd improbabilities all, too, with such an air of candour that it threw folks off their guard. We had heard of his powers ere we came on board, but he almost managed to hoodwink us with his fictions while apparently busied in some- thing else handling his knife and fork, or crumbling a piece of bread his most flagrant efforts being made under cover of reaching for the cruet-stand. He commenced telling us in his usual off-hand ways : " Fine flavour this tea best tea I've tasted for weeks (a sardine, steward !) it was lucky I got it as I did the Marquis of Normandy, Queensland Governor, you know, had (a-hem, hem ! something in my throat, I think !) had ordered a large quantity of it from Hong Kong the finest Bohea, mind you (another cup, Williams) he bought more than the family could use ; so (I'll take the butter, please) so I got three chests of the tea from the Marquis, and and " " Ah, captain," said we, shaking half a dozen remonstrative fingers " ah, captain, how could you?" He gravely winked, and answered in a whisper "Gentlemen, you've found me out, but but you'd wonder how many believe me ! " During the rest of the time the captain devoted himself to a convalescent English curate and his brother, giving them a comic account of the coast how Smoky Cape got its name from the fumigation of a cave full of escaped convicts how the Solitary Islands were inhab- ited each by one man how Cape Byron was so called because a relation of the poet Wordsworth lived there: and how Point Danger, strange to say, was the safest promontory on the coast, with other facts that eventually opened the eyes of the two mild people. In time we sighted the Dividing Range, the border-line be- tween New South Wales and Queensland, with Mount Warning in the foreground, a sharp fantastic peak 3833 feet high. A few hours afterwards we sailed into Moreton Bay, the entrance to the River Brisbane a wide expanse of water, which formerly gave its name to this large district. The Moreton Bay District became Queensland upcjn the separation from New South Wales. On this occasion we sailed up to Brisbane in the evening, but subsequently we came through the bay by daylight, steering through a long double line of black and red beacons, passing a large training-ship for the irregular youth of Queens- Brisbane. 8 1 land, and viewing the island of St Helena, a convict station so called in bygone days when a black, by name Napoleon, was put on it for some offence. We did not get this fact from the captain ! The River Brisbane is very broad and winding, and narrows very imperceptibly. High banks stretch up on either side, with green and yellow squares of cultivation, and occasional patches of sugar or tobacco. Nearing Brisbane, you have numerous views of its suburbs. While you are admiring the prospect, there is an abrupt turn, and a high knoll interposes itself. Soon there is a break in the river-banks, and the houses re-appear in quite a different direction altogether. Again a high slope glides past, and again the houses pop in sight, looking as when you first saw them. Then the vessel swings round, and the suburbs disappear behind four or five hundred yards of dull lifeless banks. These taper down, and we have more windings and more glimpses glimpses ahead, astern, and abeam, till finally we steam round Kanga- roo Point, a sharp elbow of the river, and come in view of the metropolis. Brisbane, the capital of Queensland, lies twenty-five miles from the mouth of the river. It is a new-looking town, with fine wide streets. There are four divisions North and South Brisbane, separated by the river; Kangaroo Point, a small peninsula formed by an eccentric turn of the stream ; and Fortitude Valley, a suburb to the eastward the total population being 20,000. The chief street has an irregular sky-line, few of the buildings being alike in size or structure. But there are many fine stores and warehouses. From the verandah of the Royal Hotel we have a good view of the town. Immediately opposite stands the gleaming white post-office, surmounted by a gilt-lettered transparent dial and a small peal of bells. Next to it, the police station, a low, white-washed building, with an interested crowd always hanging about. On the other side of it we see, over the new telegraph office, a cluster of masts and yards, the shipping on the river, with a flapping red pennant standing out against the green banks on the opposite side. To our right and left stretches Queen Street, the principal thoroughfare, with a cab rank in the njjddle, and Albert cars or Melbourne cabs flying up and down. We see, too, great numbers of blue and white sign-painted verandahs, a family resemblance in them all. From the rear of our hotel we look across an array of back-yards and gardens, with waving banana- F 82 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. trees. The street is busy with horsemen ; with big red coaches, rumbling to the post-office with the mails ; and drays with twelve, fourteen, and in some cases twenty bullocks attached. Aboriginals, male and female, and Polynesians from some up- country sugar plantation, stroll about, with blue-striped trousers, short coats, and umbrellas ; while little boys are to be seen chewing away at sugar-cane, two and three feet long, using it as a walking-stick and eating the upper end. There is an hour in Brisbane when the elite of the town drive out ; when Mr Acres, the squatter, leaves his private apartment in the hotel, and exhibits his landed self in a buggy ; when the Reverend Blank unpaddocks his horse, and canters round on visits ; when the fashionable father rides alongside his fashionable daughter; when Mr Innkeeper, Mr Grocer, and Mr Draper air their respective families in their several " sociables ; " and when every person is showily dressed, every horse sleek, and every vehicle speckless. The Parliament House is the grandest building in the city, a three-domed structure, which occupied seven years in its erection. A broad flight of steps, inlaid with mosaic work, leads up into the interior, the head of the staircase ornamented with a stained-glass Queen Victoria. The Upper House is an airy light-painted hall, with a blazing coat of arms at one end. The Lower House looks a trifle less sumptuous, the Speaker's chair, however, being an admirable specimen of colonial wood and colonial workmanship. The library, solely for the use of the members, is large. There is an ornamental glass case con- taining works relating to the late Prince Consort, presented by the Queen, who has with her own hand written the presentation pages. The Houses of Parliament overlook the Botanical Gardens. These form a pleasant walk by the riverside, and have one peculiar feature a bamboo grove, which is really exquisite, the lofty bending stems meeting from either side and forming a leafy corridor. Scotsmen are very numerous in Brisbane, and we received much kindness from them both in public and private. We sang in the School of Arts, which has a fine capacious hall. There is also, in connection with it, an excellent library and reading-room, where, in addition to the English papers, you can read the latest expensive scientific work or fashionable novel, and see the leading illustrated papers of Britain, Germany, and France. The river at Brisbane is a quarter of a mile broad. Small Early Struggles of Queensland. 83 steamboats run to Ipswich, fifty miles further up, their large red churning stern-wheels giving life to the river. These, with sailing-barges and wood-rafts, make up the usual every-day traffic. The Australian Steam Navigation Company's steamers call in once or twice a-week, and occasionally ships from foreign ports, though these latter are generally of limited tonnage. The larger vessels have to lie outside the bar at the mouth of the river. At the west end of the town a massive iron girder-bridge crosses the river. It is almost finished, and will cost ,100,000. To have a satisfactory view of Brisbane and neighbourhood you must ascend the heights behind the town, from whence there is the full sweep of a verdant country, with near hills and the far-off shadowy peaks of the Dividing Range. You see the river winding towards you through the landscape, till it loses itself amidst the bright expanse of new painted fresh- looking buildings at your feet. Then, gliding past the palatial seat of Parliament, it glistens here and there in the gaps between the houses, twisting and turning away on your left, imbibing the full-flowing Breakfast Creek, and suddenly disappearing in one of its many windings to the sea. Both on the north and south sides of the river there are numerous charming walks quiet meditative nooks, rural roads, or busy streets variety enough to please every one. We passed altogether a pleasant fortnight the weather being generally mild, as befitted the winter month of July, with a noon-day glare of hot sun, to remind us of the semi-tropical climate. Brisbane is a flourishing town in every sense of the word. Nine out of ten houses are freehold, and there is a well-to-do appearance about the people. Tradesmen are confident, and the folks generally are hopeful. It is a really fine city, the capital of a young and thriving colony. Queensland, which for a time formed a northern district of New South Wales, did not come into separate existence till 1859. Like all growing settlements, it has had its difficulties, and these of no common kind. At first, it had a season of fictitious prosperity, flourish- ing on borrowed funds, precociously raising a national debt But in 1866 there came a serious commercial crisis, paralysing trade, and creating a panic. People every morning scanned the newspapers for the latest failure. The affairs of the banks went into chaos, and no business was transacted. An "A. S. N." captain told us that, while collecting passage-money on the steam-boats, he had bundles of useless cheques lying on his 84 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. hands, signed by persons "right as a trivot." All ended happily, however, for the banks paid up every farthing. In the midst of the crisis the public works stopped, and the Government railway extensions came to an abrupt close. Hundreds of labourers were discharged crowds clamoured in the streets half-starved people invaded butcher and baker, demanding meat and bread. Riots were feared, and the com- munity was in agitation and disorder ; when, in the nick of time, like the opening of a door to relief and safety, there broke out the great Gympie gold diggings. Away north, up amongst the hills, rushed the starving hundreds, finding food and employment, and forming the foundation of one of the most prosperous townships in the colony. This gold-rush, bringing miners from all portions of Australia, brought also a great addition to the Government revenue, and it would not be too much to say that Gympie saved Queensland from bank- ruptcy. Lately tin has been discovered in extraordinary rich- ness at Stanthorpe and other places in the southern districts. Coal and copper also have been found at different parts, awaiting larger development in the future. Nearly all kinds of grain are raised, and nearly every species of fruit. Wool, the chief product, is grown on the famous Darling Downs and the wide western plains. Everything betokens prosperity. The infant colony has at length grown to a vigorous youth. It has had its juvenile ailments, commercial croup and monetary measles, but is now convalescent, and will advance to successful maturity. From Brisbane we went north to Gympie, the hardest four days' travelling we ever had in Australia. We still possessed our coach and team of horses, having shipped them with us from Sydney. About six in the morning we left the Royal Hotel, with something like a cheer from the stableman and waiter. During the whole of the day we had a weary, lonely bush road. Forty-three miles out, and^ towards evening, we reached a way- side inn, kept by a Perth woman. Here we had every atten- tion and every possible comfort, for she was a "real nice body," and bustled about in a heart-warming Scottish fashion. The house had a fine situation. Standing outside, we looked across the road then across a paddock filled with horses then across a creek running through a small gully then over a black sea of tree-tops, till we saw, rising sheer from the sur- rounding country, two strange isolated purple peaks, lit up in the bright sunset one a naked cliff, the other a precipice TJie Wilds of Queensland. 85 grafted upon the summit of a hill. They can be seen far out at sea. The name of Glass Mountains was given to them by Captain Cook. On the second day of our journey the road was rougher and the scenery grander. The vegetation was more tropical in appearance, with luxuriant growth near the creeks. A passage in many places had been cut through the dense scrub, and once or twice, while resting the horses, we tried to grope our way through the prickly maze but failed. On each side of us rose high banks surmounted by lofty trees, which towered up like walls. Coach and horses seemed to dwarf as we passed through this precipitous vegetation. The air was filled with forest fragrance. The thickset, straight, tapering timber was inter- woven with parasites, like natural trellis-work, with long leafy tendrils trickling down from a great height. On every side flourished the iron-bark, blue-gum, Moreton Bay pine, and the Bunya Bunya pine the latter a splendid tree, rising to the height of 150 feet There were bushes, too, with blue, yellow, and red blossoms. Birds whistled, some of them with quaint songs, one having great resemblance to a vigorous kiss or " smack." Just before reaching the mountainous portion of the journey some rain fell, creating a steamy marshy smell. We had to walk for many miles this second day, urging the horses three yards at a time up the long hills. " Folks gener- ally swear here," said Patrick with an air of information, at the foot of a formidable ascent " a good long oath ; it makes the horses go better." No doubt ; but hum we could never think ahem ! of The very thing ! use the names of Scotch songs. We started up the hill. " Jo-o-ohn Grumlie !" shouted one ; " Ye Hanks and Bra-a-aes!" shrieked another; "Get up and Bar the Door oh !" yelled a third, frightening one of the leading horses, who sticks manfully into his collar. On we go. " Oh, why left I my Ha-a-ame ! " takes us an immense distance ; " Castles in the Air ! " gets the coach up about fifteen yards ; " We're a' Noddin' ! " delivered with impassioned fervour, makes great difference in the speed ; " My Heart's in the Highlands ! " in despairing accents, sends us half-way up a slope ; while " Tarn Glen," " Ower the Hills an' far Awa-a-a ! " in fierce excited tones by the entire company, bring us hoarse, perspiring, and exhausted to the mountain's brow. Near the top of another ascent, the " Devil's Elbow," we fairly stuck. We found it no use to shout or lash or shoulder the wheels. The poor brutes spluttered and tore up a foot or so ; then came to a halt. We 86 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. had to unharness them ; there was no help for it ; twilight would soon be setting in. So we left our driver Patrick in charge of the coach, and trudged with the horses seven weary miles to Cobb's Camp, a wayside house, where we arrived amid rain and dark- ness. This inn was kept by a German, an honest, good-hearted man. We housed the animals, and made arrangements for additional horses in the morning. After tea we found the host and hostess in the verandah peering out into the darkness for the expected horse-express going down to Brisbane with late letters for the home mail. The man was behind time. The night was wet, black, and stormy. The rustle and creak of the trees, the hiss and beat of the rain, prevented us from hearing distinctly, as we strained our ears for some sound of his approach. Once during a lull we made sure we heard the thump of horse hoofs, but the wind swept by and we lost them completely. He was up and close upon us with his white horse before we knew, and in a second he was off and into the bar. where he undid his dripping glazed coat and told the folks the weather was bad, and that the roads were bad, and that the fall he had was bad, and that the same horse had rolled over him twice before, and that altogether he felt like taking a glass of brandy. He stayed all right, and left with his saddle bags early in the morning. We left not long after him, taking two fresh horses, and finding Patrick comfortably asleep inside the coach, covered up with rugs, with a portmanteau for his pillow. This day's travelling was unspeakably rough, with descents over rocks and boulders, the coach running through the high grass, and shipwrecking upon sunken roots of trees. In the midst of the wilds a tall, fierce, half-naked black started up in front of us. "Lickspince"' (sixpence), said he " Give song," said we and to our utter amazement he burst forth into a grotesque, barbarous version of " Auld Lang Syne," which he had no doubt heard sung at nights round the fireside of some lonely Scottish shepherd on one of the great outlying sheep-stations. We met, too, a per- spiring, red-faced man "swagging it" from Gympie a plasterer. who was disgusted with the place. "Fancy," he exclaimed. " they wanted me to work for 8s. 4d. a-day the place is going to the dogs ! " We made only a stage of eighteen miles this day, so heavy were the roads. We stayed all night at a small inn. One of us had to sleep on a table, while I lay on the bar-room sofa, having for lullaby a game of " euchre," played by the maudlin host, a passing drayman, and our driver. In the dark of early morning we started upon our final stage, The Gympie Gold Field. 87 resting during the forenoon at another of those numerous small wayside houses. This one was interesting from the number of blacks round it. They seemed to be free and untrammelled in their ways few of them had on more than a shirt. One old man was sitting on his skinny haunches tearing up chips of wood with a three-pronged fork to form stuffing for a mattress. Another was polishing with sand a brass breast-plate inscribed " King George and Queen Anne of Woombill Creek," the badge of the tribe, presented to the royal pair by a squatter. An old woman with only two teeth, like long tusks, in either corner of her mouth, danced and screamed round us with a long stick, her canvas cloak fluttering in rags. In a hut at the back of the house a number of drowsy blacks lay toasting their toes round a wood fire, the smoke of which hung heavily inside, and curled out from the chinks between the sheets of bark. Altogether it was a strange spectacle. In our last stage we had a great extent of flat, boggy ground to go over narrow lanes hemmed in by the same thick under- growth as before, with mud three feet deep, through which the horses floundered and the vehicle proceeded by slow plunges. Once we heard far-off shouts mingling with whip-cracks, and " Cobb's coach," the public conveyance, came rolling and pitching round a corner, the driver saluting us with, " Keep up your spirits, there's only the Devil's Backbone now; good morning ! " And truly this last slimy, slippery ascent merited its name. The gradient was so steep that the horses could not pull the coach up more than a few feet at a time even though we had all leapt out, and were each pushing desperately at a wheel, with Patrick in front tugging frantically at the leaders' heads. We sighted Gympie at four o'clock that after- noon, and never was town so welcome. We were covered with mud from head to foot, and as we walked up the main street, a rumour spread that " they had arrived too late for their concert." But we set to work, had tea, put the hall in order, and at eight o'clock stepped on the platform. Gympie, the leading gold-field of Queensland, has been in existence since October of 1867. A miner named William Nash, travelling in the district, chanced to rest one evening at a creek, and while his tin can was boiling on the fire, he went up the gully prospecting for gold. Finding good " indications," he joyfully bundled up his things and started off to Mary- borough ; bought a dray, tent, tools, and provisions, and started back again, followed by hundreds of people on foot and 88 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. horseback. The place had flourished for a month or so, when a quartz reef was opened up, and after a day or two another and another, till the alluvial diggings were almost deserted. Gympie is now a prosperous reefing district, and, as might be supposed, is still very primitive in appearance. All mining towns have three stages of development first canvas then wood ,hen brick. Gympie is now in the climax of the wood metamorphosis. Nearly all the houses, shops, stores, and churches are constructed of wood. The principal street is Mary Street, an irregular thoroughfare winding up one side of a hill the shop fronts in every shape and design, with wooden cornices surmounted by flagstaff's, and the street resembling from a distance the long straggling lines of booths at a country fair. The places of worship are St Patrick's Roman Catholic Church, St Peter's Church of England, the Presbyterian Church, the Congregational Chapel, and the Primitive Methodists' Meeting- house, which latter stands retiringly in a by-street, and is already historic. It has the honour of being the first place of worship erected at Gympie, and went and still goes by the name of the " Diggers' Bethel," which title is painted on a sign over the door. The Presbyterian Church has a decayed look about it, but there is a cheerful new wooden building erecting close by. The older structure claims great antiquity telling posterity, in large letters, that it was founded in 1867. It is, however, older than most of the stores in town, few of them existing earlier than 1868. Crossing Nash's Gully, which intersects Mary Street, and which is the spot where gold was first found, a short walk takes you over the Caledonian Hill to Monkland, a suburb of Gympie, about as broadcast a place as can well be imagined. A person could believe there had been at one time a metropolis of huts, and that in the course of some wide-spread devastation only every sixth or seventh hut had been left standing. Monkland is plebeian, but it is the busiest part of the gold-field ; Gympie is the shopping and fashionable quarter. There is jealousy between them. The people of Monkland virtually say to the folks of Gympie " You in the gully there may think fit and proper to form your houses into a street, which is just in keep- ing with all your other high-flown notions, but we have not forgotten our pristine freedom, and prefer to act in an uncon- ventional manner, building our houses around our shafts and claims." We lived at a hotel which was a curiosity in its way. It had The Gympie Gold Field. 89 a good appearance outside, but was rather incomplete as to interior arrangements. The bedrooms, for instance, were all under one common roof, about eleven feet high, and separated from each other by wooden partitions about nine feet high. A knock at one door elicited " Yes " from half-a-dozen different people. The hotel being full, I had to occupy a newly-formed room. It was merely a portion of the verandah divided off by loosely-arranged planks lined with calico, and the wind blew in coldly from the street. One night sufficed for this, and then I got comfortably housed inside the hotel. Gympie was at first called Nashville in honour of the dis- coverer. The convenient French monosyllable dignifies any commonplace name. No one would ever think of Thomson Town or Smith Town, but Jonesville, Brownville, or Nashville are quite euphonious enough for the trumpet of fame. Unfor- tunately Government altered the title back to the old creek name of Gympie. Nash received fourteen claims, forty feet square, on the line of gold, as a gift from Government, and a further reward of ^2000, a standing bonus to anyone discover- ing a payable gold-field. Nash soon made money, and is now in Maryborough. He has invested in sugar plantations, a safer speculation than quartz-reefing. His example has been followed by the other rich men of Gympie, and cane-growing would seem to be the order of the day. The population numbers 6000, one-half engaged in mining. We found the Gympie miner to be a thriving individual, with plenty of wages and steady employment. Here we came across that wonderful digger, to be found on every gold-field, who retails to you his narrow escapes from good fortune, telling you what he might have been if he had only held on to those valuable shares of his, if he had only taken the ^5000 offered him for his small bit of land, if he had not been an ass, if he had kept his eyes open, if he had shut his mouth to drink, if he had not foolishly speculated with the hard-earned savings of years. This man of buts and ifs is vocally a millionaire there is an atmosphere of wealth about him. He talks, laments, sighs, looks, and breathes money. You feel as if he had been wronged by the Fates ; you shake his horny hand and wish him " Good luck in the future." There are people in Gympie from every gold-rush under the sun. We made acquaintance during our short stay with men from California, from New Zealand, from Ballarat, from Sandhurst, and from the diggings of New South Wales. Whether they were managers, shareholders, or 90 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. common miners, they all had an elastic, bounding confidence in Gympie. They based future prosperity on the reefs deep- sinking was to be the foundation of Gympie's greatness. By all above the earth and underneath the earth, they believed in it. By official statistics, the total of the escort returns (the gold sent down to Brisbane by armed convoy) since January of 1868, amounted to 302,275 ounces, the value of which, at ^3, ios. per ounce, was ^1,057,963, us. 8d. Gympie has thriven, and will thrive. The poor plasterer, whom we met in full tra'mp to other, and perhaps worse fields of labour, was surely benighted as to the prospects of the place. There seemed, in my opinion, plenty of work present and work future no doubt for the despicably paltry sum (according to the plasterer) of fifty shillings a-week, but still a certainty. Judging from appearances, Gympie has a fair share of building enterprise. The gaps in the streets are gradually being filled up. The tentmaker has relaxed his hold on Gympie, and the carpenter at present reigns supreme ; but the bricklayer, plasterer, and stonemason will one day step in and make it a substantial city. An easy journey of two days brought us north to Mary- borough. This town is the port of the Burnett district, and centre of the principal timber trade of Queensland. Coal mines flourish in the neighbourhood. Maize and sugar are grown in large quantities, and cotton in a smaller degree, while there are a great many cattle and sheep stations round about. It lies on the River Mary, which, like most of the Queensland rivers, is wide and full-flowing. There was more life about it than I had expected. Steamers of 500 tons lay alongside the wharves ; rows of drays were backed up close to the low-roofed goods-sheds ; a party of workmen were repairing portion of a wharf, driving in piles brass-sheathed as a protection from the ravages of the white ant. Here we saw large numbers of South Sea Islanders, who are brought to Queensland by as near an approach to slave-trading as it is possible to reach under the British flag. They are employed on the maize and sugar plantations, and work also on the wharves. There were scores of Queensland blacks, too, carrying cargo to the steamers- brawny, muscular fellows, with brass breast-plates inscribed " King George," " King Billy," and the like, though we were greatly shocked to see royalty tussling with corn-sacks and trundling bales of hay. We go to see the annual Maryborough races, which are held in An Interesting Horse-Race. 91 a clearing three miles out of town. The trees are statuesquely grouped about with blacks, who show their teeth in open- mouthed interest. Vehicles of every description are drawn up to the barriers of the course; rust-coloured hacks and sweaty plough-horses are openly paraded. Of course there are thieves, gamblers, and refreshment rooms. "Have a shy at Aunt Sallee!" This effigy is owned by an aboriginal, who offers us a shot, and who throws the sticks with great precision. He demolishes the old lady's pipe, grins till his face bears family resemblance to the dummy, and challenges a gentleman to "play him for a drink." The gentleman loses, and the pair walk off in a friendly way to the refreshment tent. Behind an uptilted cart we see a cardsharper in the hands of the police, sur- rounded by a boisterous crowd. Pale and damp about the eyes, he tremblingly offers a pound-note for liberty, whispering feebly "Take it, sergeant, take it; I'll give you more!" Click ! go the handcuffs, and the crowd swarms off to fresh excitement. The best race of the day is one hastily made up of " scrubbers," or grass-fed horses. There are about fourteen of them, ridden by jacketless, bare-armed young fellows, with coloured handkerchiefs tied round their heads. They are placed at last in long, wavering line. Once ! twice ! whoop ! away they scamper an irregular rabble, with their shirts blow- ing out behind like balloons. The whole of the folks gallop and canter through the trees to the opposite side of the course, from whence we hear vague exclamations, and faint commingled cries from the ragged throng of jockeys. Round they come for the finish ! Foremost of all is a butcher-lad on a large heavy-limbed horse, the common mob following in rough style. " Go it, Harry ! " " Now then, Dick, lay into him ! " " Good for the butcher-boy, he has the cup ! " The herd of wild competitors, with sticks, thongless whips, leather straps, and knotted handkerchiefs, lash their horses vigorously struggling along after the leading animal, quicker and quicker. The butcher-boy, proudly conscious of his position, looks round with a smirk, expecting to see his foes in extremest distance, turns blank and solemn when he finds them near, leans forward in the saddle and kicks behind, hastily unbuckles his waist-belt, swings it in the air, brings it sharp on the horse's flank, makes the animal draw out in splendid style, wins the post, wheels round in front of the grand stand, and is at that moment almost unhorsed by the puffing, sweating, tumultuous rush of his disappointed rivals. 92 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. We saw more blacks in Maryborough than in any other por- tion of Australia. They gathered about the town in large numbers, striding up and down with long spears, waddies or clubs, and boomerangs hanging about the hotel doors, or clustering round the lamp-posts at street-corners. The older women wore oppossum rugs, had their faces covered over with a thick coating of red chalk, and had a circlet of high feathers sticking up round their heads. I must confess the old women looked unearthly with their coloured faces, but we were told this chalk was the symbol of mourning. All the women own dogs. Whenever you see a number of black females together you see a corresponding gathering of dogs. And how well they are treated ! Their mistresses share with them the bread and scraps of meat collected from domestics at the back doors of hotels. And what anguish if ill befall them ! One day I saw one of these wiry dogs run over by a fast baker's van. The poor brute howled and doubled itself up in agony, while its old mistress, after great clapping and wringing of hands, set to work soothing the animal and replacing the pieces' of abrased skin. All the time she continuously uttered a series of mumblings and broken exclamations, a stray tear or two finding their way through the thick layer of red chalk upon her face. In a few minutes she became overjoyed, for the dog ate a piece of meat from her hand, and hobbled quietly along. The Queensland blacks are taller and more muscular than their fellows in Victoria. They have a less civilised appearance, and altogether look grander savages. They are sly dogs, too, those aboriginals. One of them was once begging for sixpence, and a gentleman tendered him an old battered threepenny- piece. " No, no, no," said the black, shaking his head and grinning " no, no that no good that congregation money!" They are fond of trading in a small way. One of the blacks at Maryborough offered us a boomerang for a shilling. Before purchasing it we asked him to throw it in proof of its genuine- ness. Accompanied by a large number of young blacks and a bevy of erect, poker-like females, who smoked and who used spears as walking-sticks, we went to an open piece of ground, where the black poised himself for the throw. He stood there, seemingly undecided. "Go on," cried we. "Old woman," said he. " Where ? " said we, looking in every direction before us. "Behind! boomerang come back! hurt!" After the old lady had passed, the aboriginal stuck out his elbows on a level with his ears, poising the boomerang on The Queensland Blacks. 93 the back of his left hand, and grasping it firmly in his right. Then turning half round on his heel, he suddenly sent the weapon flying high into the air. It whirled, dodged, curved, went this way, changed its mind, went that way, came swoop- ing down close to the ground, rose high again with graceful sweep, lost a great deal of its vitality, revolved feebly, fluttered down again exhausted, skimmed lightly along the grass, and finally landed a few yards from the feet of the black. We bought the boomerang, and thought we had not spent our shilling recklessly. The Queensland black is passionate and ferocious. Just a day or two after we had left Maryborough, two aboriginals, Jemmy and Toby, had a mortal encounter on the river-side. Toby shouted across the water to Jemmy, commanding him to bring a boat over. He refused point blank, and Toby went off in a huff, while Jemmy stretched himself out for rest, a gun by his side. Toby went a little further up, swam across the river, sneaked through the scrub, jerked a spear at Jemmy and wounded him in the arm. Toby advanced with club and tomahawk, and Jemmy discharged his gun into Toby's stomach. The latter fell mortally wounded, but rose in a climax of fury, sprung on astonished Jemmy, smashed his brains in with the tomahawk, and then fell dead upoa- his slaughtered adversary. Cannibalism is almost extinct now amongst the Australian blacks. If practised at all, it is only by the old men of the tribes. When you speak to any of them on the subject, they personally deny dining off another black fellow. They know the white man's abhorrence of the custom, and accuse some one else. It is always the "other fellow,""the "other tribe," that indulges in cannibalism. In a natural state the aboriginals live on yams, cassava root, kangaroo, opossum, and a kind of wood slug or caterpillar. Frazer's Island, a favourite camping ground of the blacks, lies at the mouth of the Mary River. It was named after Captain Frazer, who, with his crew, was shipwrecked on the island, and cruelly murdered by the natives. Mission work has long been carried on by a Mr Fuller, but the blacks have been wiled away from the station by the wood-cutters on the island, and have lost much of the good effect produced. CHAPTER VIII. ROCKHAMPTON STATION LIFE QUEENSLAND PORTS THE DARLING DOWNS THE QUEENSLAND TIN IkllNES. WE never had a more perfect sea voyage than that from Mary- borough to Rockhampton. We were thirty hours from wharf to wharf a distance of some 250 miles. During the afternoon of the second day we came in view of Cape Capricorn, a rocky point lying upon the boundaries of the tropics rounding which we passed through Keppel Bay to the mouth of the Fitzroy River a range of mountains 1600 feet high, forming a near background. There was not the smallest puff of wind, and the sun shone down oppressively. The sea was smooth and veiled by a faint mist like a vast mirror that had been breathed on. The shoals, rocks, and sandy spits fluttered with sea-fowl, while tall sober pelicans stepped around in a paternal manner amongst the smaller birds. The river banks were low, muddy, sultry-looking, and hazy covered with gloomy mangrove scrub, and fringed with tall, close reeds, every stalk and branch vividly reflected in the water. As the sun set, the sky blazed with orange tints, while the long reach of the river, stretching out before us, shone staring white with the reflection of the colourless sky immediately above. Then quietness settled down. The low thud of the paddle-wheels, the metallic "clunk" of the frogs in the marshes, the chirp and whirr of insects, the frequent ripple of hungry fish, and the occasional warning clang of the ship's bell echoing back from the hills, seemed to deepen the general stillness. About seven in the evening we espied, far up the stream, several points of light shining feebly against the yellow belt 'that circled the horizon; then a dark mass swept past us a house, followed by more houses, the outskirts of Rockhampton, till soon we were opposite the wharf amid the waving of lanterns, the clatter of ropes, the flaring-up of the raked-out furnaces, the guttering of steam from the blow- holes, and the solicitations of draymen, one of whom conveyed our luggage to the Leichardt Hotel. Rockhampton. 95 Rockhampton, like Maryborough, stands on flat ground, and would have much the same characterless appearance were it not for a mountain range a few miles distant. The streets are exceedingly wide, and the houses are mostly one-storey verandahed buildings, with corrugated iron roofs, slates being liable to crack in the heat of summer. Rockhampton is regarded as the capital of Northern Queensland, and is the port for a large extent of inland country. The produce of the Peak Downs copper and gold mines, distant 250 miles in the interior, finds an outlet here. As to agriculture, there are only a few hundred acres at present under cultivation, the major portion of the country being occupied by sheep and cattle stations. The works of the Central Queensland Meat Preserving Company, a short distance down the river, employ one hundred persons. This large establishment cost ^30,000 in its erection, and has in connection with it a village of work- men's cottages. Whether preserved meat finds favour in Britain or not, there is at any rate plenty of it prepared here ! Though it was the month of August, and the winter season, we felt the climate to be warm. The townsfolk themselves complained of the heat, and threw open their houses to the noon-day gaze, reclining in canvas lounges, smoking and chatting in the verandahs. The windows were in reality folding glass-doors. The Rockhampton people certainly know how to combat warm weather. The grocer, the butcher, and the baker are attired in the lightest costumes ; the barber shaves you with tucked up sleeves, and shirt open at the neck ; and the draper goes about without coat or waistcoat, selling his goods to gaily-dressed young ladies. In the summer season, labourers are allowed two hours' rest at mid-day, to avoid the full power of the sun. I felt curious as to the extent of real summer heat ; from the shape and style of the buildings it must be great. The population of Rockhampton has greatly decreased from what it was during the gold rushes of 1867. There are now about 6000 inhabitants. And while on the subject of popula- tion, I may mention that, while coming up in the steam-boat, the captain told us how his first load of emigrants to Rock- hampton were forty-five single women a precious cargo surely. At that time there were only six houses in Rockhampton, and the fair sex were all lodged in one building. In a few days they had all disappeared one-third of them into service, two-thirds into matrimony. The bachelor squatters used to walk into this interesting domicile and make their choice. 96 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. The Fitzroy is one of the largest rivers in Australia, and drains, with its tributaries, an extent of 60,000,000 acres. It is navigable thirty-five miles from the bay, a reef of rocks near the town preventing the passage of any but the smallest boats. Crocodiles abound in the river farther up, however, than Rockhampton- not insignificant monsters either, as they have been seen twenty-five feet in length. " Big Ben," who was caught in the Fitzroy, and whom we saw stuffed in a museum at Sydney, was twenty -two feet long, and weighed ten hundred- weight. He appeared to be a historical character. He had been seen at such and such a part of the river, in such and such a year, by such and such a person, and had crowned himself with fame by on one occasion dragging a huge bullock neck and crop into the river. Now and then large nests are found, and a gentleman one day presented us with an egg out of sixty-six he had discovered the same morning. The Leichardt Hotel was one of the most comfortable houses we "ever lived in. The landlord was exceedingly kind ; the table was always excellently furnished ; the bedrooms were clean and airy ; the coffee-room was large, well supplied with newspapers, and had two large punkahs swinging from the roof, keeping up a cool draught in the hot evenings. At this hotel I had for a candlestick a black man's skull, the candle placed in one of the eye-sockets a piece of diablerie that might have graced the table of Alloway Kirk, and would certainly have raised an extra hair on the head of glorious Tarn. One sunny forenoon we walked out to a garden in the neighbourhood, owned by a German, one of the best-hearted fellows we had met with for many a day. His garden was a rough bush-garden, certainly with no trim-bordered grounds or gravelled walks but I never before saw such a variety of fruits and flowers in such a small compass. Our friend met us at the little white wooden gate, dragged us inside, bustled before us into his house, forced us to drink jugs of milk, made us rest our limbs for a quarter of an hour, and then took us round to see his adorable vegetation. Clumps of bananas, clumps of sugar-cane, clumps of bamboo umbrella trees, with upright stems and outspread shading-branches bread-fruit trees, palm trees bunya, peach, and orange trees passion-flowers ; pome- granates, mulberries, pears, strawberries, and vines cotton trees, tobacco plants, castor-oil trees ! cauliflowers ! cab- bages ! How the mind reeled amid the profusion ! " Oh, dem veeds ! " suddenly cried our friend " dem veeds \ Vi A Wonderful Garden. 97 and he pulled up a number of large pine-apples, which were grow- ing wild alongside the walk. He called them "weeds" no doubt because they grew without his permission. They were in the highest degree palatable. We were ushered into the house again, and had another rest, with some more milk to drink, and nice home-made cakes to eat. While we were waiting, the German made up some bright-coloured bouquets; and while we were admiring the flowers, the good lady of the house was filling a basket with oranges. She would have us take them, they were so healthy in warm weather. Lemons were even better, she said ; and the kind folks stuffed our pockets with them, shaking our hands the while, and hop- ing we would not miss our way in the bush. The same day our friend, who drove round town every afternoon, came to the hotel, smiling over an armful of flowers. He dropped them on the table and hurried out, returning again with more smiles, and a large canvas bag filled with lemons, which were to be cut up and put in a jug with sugar and water, and were to keep us cool in the hot weather as long as we were in Rock- hampton. We gave him our united thanks, thanking him out of the door, and thanking him till he disappeared away down the street. It will be long ere we forget either him or his garden. There is a Presbyterian Church in Rockhampton, but it might be more properly called a Protestant Church, as it is to a great extent unsectarian. It is a small wooden building, but it holds a good number of a congregation. The regular minister being absent, his place was occupied by a German, Mr Haussmann, son of one of the first missionaries who came out to Moreton Bay. A great many Germans attended the church, and in the afternoon a sermon was generally preached to them in their own tongue. Rockhampton is famous for two things. First, for its Town Council, which is energetic and spirited beyond the lot of municipalities generally. Secondly, for its railway, which runs as far as Westwood, a small township thirty miles to the south- westward. It is supposed to accommodate the squatters living in the interior ; but they fail to see the advantage of sending their wool such a short distance by rail after transporting it on drays for some hundreds of miles. One day, when we were marvelling to ourselves at being 1500 miles north of Melbourne, a Victorian friend slapped us on the back, exclaiming, " Well, well, who would have thought G 98 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. of seeing you here ? are you thinking of going north at all ? " North ! This to us who had prided ourselves in coming so far ! We were quite taken aback, but we found out afterwards there was a great deal of life in the north. There were some important towns Bowen, Mackay, Cardwell, and Townsville among the number ninety miles from which latter place are the famous Charters Towers Diggings a gold rush which lately charmed away many hundreds of miners from all portions of Australia. Time did not permit of our visiting those places, though we were sorely tempted, having heard repeated and favourable accounts of them from the people of Rockhampton, who regard their city as the metropolis of that vast northern region. At Rockhampton we made acquaintance with a young squatter, who had just ridden down from his station, 200 miles up the country. Some years ago a large party of blacks attacked the station and murdered the young man's father. The son now conducts the business. He told us that he found station- life to be dull, and preferred the stir of Sydney or Melbourne. True, he read books and newspapers in the evenings, and sometimes visited his neighbours. Another squatter lived " only twelve miles distant," which was reckoned to be almost next door. Sometimes a passing show would call in at the little township for be it known there is always a goodly collection of cottages and huts in connection with a station. One day a small circus came round, and the manager cast his eye about in a business-like manner. Then he addressed the squatter : " Ah hum yes I'll fix up my tent here, if you please. I've been turning the matter over, and perhaps it will yes, it will be some slight trouble taking money from each person in the place so I think it will simplify matters greatly if you just give me a cheque for the population ! " This squatter had 45,000 sheep on his station. He also kept one hundred horses and broke-in forty colts every year. The breaking-in of colts is enlivening work. When one of them is ridden for the first time, there is a pretty bustling scene enacted. The horse makes every possible effort backing, plunging, rearing, and " bucking " to get its rider thrown. The " buck-jumper," as a more than usually vicious young colt is dubbed, sets its fore-legs out, puts its head down between them, arches its back, and suddenly springs into the air with a kind of squeal, coming down with all its hoofs in a bunch, and sometimes sending its rider flying over its neck, saddle, girths, A Queensland Squatter. 99 and all. If an experienced horseman and the girths hold good, you can sit the animal out till it gets exhausted. On the station, black boys are made to mount the colts for the popular diversion, but the little fellows are very rarely pitched off. The black man makes a good rider ; he clings to the stirrup solely with his big toe, and seems to have excellent foothold, for he sits securely and gracefully. Sheep-shearing, the most important business of a station, takes place all the year round in Queensland ; that is, in one district after another the great extent of the colony, its range of temperature, its low-lying plains and its high table-land, varying the conditions under which sheep-shearing is conducted. Shearers are paid at the rate of fifteen shillings per hundred sheep, and find themselves. An active man can shear a hundred per day. Sheep-shearing is dry, warm, sweaty work. The hot sheep, the blazing sun, and the hard labour cause the men to stream with perspiration. There is no drink allowed on the station, though hawkers often sell it on the sly. In that case the shearers get drunk, become refractory, and refuse to work. There is plenty of bungling work done. Sometimes the sheep struggles, and its throat is cut with the sharp shears. Sometimes it gets a stab in the ribs, or a severe gash, and then the wound is delicately molified with a blob of tar. It is rough, rough work. Any sort of man any person lolling about town, any labourer out of work turns shearer. The sheep are sold principally to Victorian buyers. What a long dreary drive it is down to the Melbourne market 1 200 miles overland ! Think even of driving sheep from Cornwall to Caithness a shorter distance by many a mile. There are never less than 10,000 sheep driven down at a time nothing short of that would pay. Six men are required to drive that number of sheep to market a "boss" or responsible man, and five common drovers. The sheep are all branded with the owner's name, and a " T " for travelling. The drovers follow no road, but take the shortest routes by means of the compass the sheep feeding, of course, on the various " runs " or stations they may happen to pass through. But a courier must go in advance and give each squatter warning twenty-four hours before the sheep enter his run. The drovers are com- pelled by law, under a heavy penalty, to travel no less than six miles per day there must be no lingering on the road to fatten up their sheep on other people's grass. Nine weary months are occupied in driving the stock to market ! The IOO Kennedy s Colonial Travel. carriage of goods from Rockhampton to this station is performed by bullock-drays. The hot weather is the drayman's curse. Away inland they have to drive on and on in search of water. If they arrive at a creek and find it dry, no matter how leg- weary the bullocks are, they have to push on often ninety miles at a stretch, day and night a long distance when we consider the slowness of the pace. Very often a bullock drops down dead through heat and want of water. Then it is hauled out of the team and dragged to the roadside, while the dray rumbles slowly past and leaves the body behind to be found days after with white protruding bones and bare skull. At night the drayman sleeps underneath his dray, and makes himself pretty comfortable too, for he stretches sacks along from one wheel to another on either side, therewith keeping off the wind and rain. The solitary traveller is not so well off, but he manages to build up a small weather-protection of saddles, packs, and bundles, lies down with a blanket round him, places his feet close to a cheerful log-fire, falls asleep, and dreams about the pleasant "damper" he partook of perhaps an hour before. " Damper " is a lump of dough, with a pinch of soda, baked in the embers of the fire. The blacks were formerly very troublesome on this young man's station, stealing cattle and sheep. They were all dis- persed about the time of his father's murder, but were subse- quently allowed to come back upon the station. They num- bered about 300 ; in his father's time there were 1000 and more. They are thinned down by a strange organization, the Native Police " black troopers," as they are familiarly called in Queensland. They are composed of natives from other districts, who are drafted off to track and capture their brethren of another tribe. Blacks are taken, for instance, from the dis- trict of the River Murray, and brought over to Queensland. Different tribes have a fearful antipathy to each other. The aboriginals have great clannish vindictiveness. They track other blacks as no white man could. The "black troopers" go in parties of five, with a white man as captain, whom the aboriginals style their " mammie." During the period following a murder, the most common crime for which the black man is hunted, the troopers enter the tangled scrub. They strip themselves naked, leaving nothing on but their caps and cart- ridge boxes. The white captain waits outside the scrub and watches the baggage. In go the blacks, with loaded guns, and carrying two spare cartridges in their 'mouths. When they Queensland Blacks. 101 come upon the tribe, they fire, and off go the unvvounded like deer, pursued by the troopers, who very seldom get a second shot. The blacks think nothing of taking life. Last year a man was crossing the Fitzroy in a boat not far above Rock- hampton, when a party of blacks rushed round him as he landed on the river bank, and "waddied" or brained him to death with clubs, within sight of an almost equal number of white men. On the other hand, we heard at Rockhampton and other parts of Queensland, dark floating rumours as to the white man's tyrannical treatment of the black. From Rockhampton we returned south again to Brisbane, visiting three Queensland ports on the way. First Gladstone, situated on Port Curtis, the scene of a great gold-rush in 1858, when thousands flocked as usual from all parts of Australia when the eager tail-end of the crowd encountered the returning and disappointed head. It was indeed a great failure. Even now, when any gold-rush proves worthless, it is called, in a climax of condemnation, a second Port Curtis. Next came Bundaberg, at this time a two-year old settlement It lay ten miles up the river Burnett. The day was hot, and dozens of black men sprawled amongst the long grass that fringed the stream. Over our heads there flew occasionally a flock of peli- cans, one of which we saw sailing along with an immense snake writhing in its beak. Another short journey and we were again at Maryborough. Just before leaving this port, five aboriginals came on board, intending to drop off at Frazer's Island, the favourite holiday ground of the blacks. When the steamer reached a certain point of the channel, they went behind one of the paddle-boxes, where they quickly undressed themselves. It requires little lime to take off a shirt. One of the blacks, an old grey-haired man, had a large ornament like an immense fern leaf slashed down his back. These gashes were made by mussel shells, and were the distinctive armorial bearings of the tribe. The young- est of the blacks was about ten or twelve years old. The five rolled up their rags into bundles, and tied them on top of their heads, with a knot under the chin. Then, with great gesticula- tion, they executed a dance on the slippery spars immediately behind the paddle-wheels. After long fidging, twitching, and nasal droning, they dived off, one after the other, into the rush ing, glancing foam not with splash and splutter, but streaking themselves coolly out. The old man had the additional task of pushing before him a bag of flour. The long yellow beach IO2 Kennedy's Colonial Travel. of the island, more than a quarter of a mile distant, was shining in the slanting rays of sunset, and was by this time thronged with blacks the women carrying bundles of fishing nets, the men waving their arms and shouting to the swimmers. At different points high perpendicular columns of smoke were rising from out the density of the trees. Looking behind with a glass, we saw five black heads bobbing in the distance, then five dark figures emerging from the surf, scampering along the sand, and joining their companions on the shore. We had to be in Brisbane on Friday to give a performance on behalf of one of the charities, but we did not find till too late that the steamer's time was altered, and that she was not due till Saturday! The captain, however, was most obliging, for he did not waste a moment, hurried up the loading at the ports, caught all the tides, and landed us at Brisbane in plenty of time for the concert. One of our horses, "Billy," a strong massive animal, having been affected with fever in the feet ever since the toilsome journey to Gympie, one of my brothers and I had to take him by steamboat to Ipswich, while the rest of the party came on by the coach. This river journey was twenty-five miles of side-splitting fun. The tide was very low, so much so that the little steamer had to be steered on shore at the sharp turnings, and then poked off with poles a most laughable procedure, the extreme shallowness of the channel inducing the captain and one of the passengers to bet as to whether the boat had or had not scraped on this or that occasion. Passengers, too, were picked up here and there off the river-banks, a small boat for the purpose being towed behind the steamer giving one the idea of an aquatic omnibus. Once, in going close inshore, we drifted slowly under a large tree trunk that projected from the bank. " Unship the flagstaff!" shouts the captain, signalling to back the engines. A man springs to the bow, hauls away at the pole, fails to move it. rushes for the carpenter, comes back almost immediately in desperation, tears out the flagstaff, turns round, waves it like a standard over a taken fortress, and is caught full in the back by the projecting tree, which takes him slowly off his legs. With such stirring adventures the time passed pleasantly. Next to Brisbane, Ipswich is the most important city in Southern Queensland. It prides itself upon being the terminus of the Southern and Western Railway. There is here a ,30,000 railway bridge, a stone-pillared structure crossing the river Bremen This railway has a total length of 188 miles, The Darling Downs. 103 constructed on the narrow guage system, three-and-a-half feet wide, at an expense of ^1,932,887. The single track, which crosses the Dividing Range, itself cost .15,929 per mile. This is the line which runs to the Darling Downs. The Darling Downs ! The words ring in your ears with a sense of pleasure long after you know that this region was named after a Governor. The Darling Downs are a splendid table-land rising fifty miles back from the coast, and reached by a railway that, through dint of wonderful engineering, climbs 2000 feet up the ranges to the high plateau. The fares on the line are fourpence per mile first-class, and threepence per mile second-class. As in Victoria, there is no third-class. The carriages are roomy, airy, well-cushioned, and double- roofed the upper roof keeping off the direct rays of the sun, and a current of cool air passing between the two. Inside, we observed a characteristic card " In consequence of damage done to the linings, persons are requested to take off their spurs before lounging on the seats " a notice, by the way, which a bespurred squatter in the same compartment with us seemed to ignore. The scenery we saw while crossing the ranges was really grand the railway spanning wide gorges, rushing through steep yellow cuttings, burrowing under great hill-sides that seemed ready to overwhelm us, and winding round the face of deep slopes, with the line running parallel away on the opposite ridges of the ravines. Through the breaks between the deep cuttings we had frequent far-off views of fields and forests flat expanses of trees spreading out like carpets, wrought with a shady pattern of clouds, and bearing the long-stretching shadows of the peaks. The open grassy country of the table-land contrasted strongly with the wild, timbered, mountainous region we had just left. On we went to Dalby, through miles of splendid downs, whose gentle undulations rose and rose ahead till they hid the far horizon and formed a level line against the sky. Dark belts of timber moved across the landscape, thread-like fences faded away into extreme distance, and flocks of sheep filed off from the approaching train. Dalby at last, the most northerly town of the Darling Downs. A wide-spread rural town. Houses here here and here at regular distances, with a gap of their own length between the same wooden, self-contained one-storey buildings that you see all over Australia. We found it bleaker here than in any other place we had been in. The Darling Downs are cooler than IO4 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. any other part of Queensland. We had a roaring log-fire in the hotel parlour. Our comfort, too, was increased by a humorous, autobiographical waiter, who presented his history along with the various courses of dinner. He served with the soup his butlership to an O'Donoghue in Ireland he arrived with the joint in New York by pudding-time he had as a mariner got safely through the bombardment of San Francisco by the " Tuscarora" and with the advent of cheese he finished a long career of glory in the principal hotels of Melbourne. There is a mammoth squatting station near Dalby the Jimbour Run, which embraces 400 square miles, has 300 miles of fencing, and is stocked with 20,000 sheep. The Darling Downs are at present occupied greatly by squatting, but will no doubt be thrown open more generally to the agricultural interest. Victoria and New South Wales are comparatively well settled ; but Queensland is a young and energetic country hungering for population. All kinds of manual labour will find in it ready employment. Carpenters, blacksmiths, farmers are needed in a new country. Clerks and shopmen will not find so ready employment. The colonies can more than supply their own desks and counters. The colonial youth is not very willing to go into the bush, or into a country town- ship. He prefers city life. While we were in Brisbane a large vessel arrived in the Bay with some hundreds of emigrants, and in a few days they were all engaged. The labour market de- pended greatly upon new arrivals, and was never overstocked. Shipload after shipload of workmen are continually being absorbed into the interior men who can make themselves handy on the large sheep and cattle stations who can assist in agricultural and every kind of out-door labour and who can make up their minds for a little hardship at the commence- ment of their " colonial experience." Some men hang about the towns in hope of light employment, not caring much to " rough it " in the bush. These men make a failure of emigration, and swell the ranks of the grumblers, who spread false ideas of the colonies. As "Go west" is the cry in America, so " Up country " should be the motto of the Aus- tralian immigrant. We sang in Toowoomba, then took the rail sixty miles to Warwick. At the latter place we met a stock-driver, who, in the course of conversation, showed us a large bump on his head, and told us of a spear-wound in his ribs, both inflicted by the blacks. One day, far inland, he happened to be riding on a Queensland Tin Mines. 105 lonely road in front of a friend also on horseback. The aboriginals, who were in ambush, and did not observe this man behind, threw a heavy club at our friend the stock-driver. He immediately fell stunned, and the blacks rushed out to despatch him ; but his companion spurred his horse forward, and routed them completely. We went next to the Stanthorpe tin-mines, forty miles south of Warwick. The road was awfully bad, being cut up by the heavy drays of tin ore, each drawn by a dozen powerful horses. The severe shocks the coach received from the deep trench- like ruts and yawning fissures gradually bent the king-bolt, and Patrick had to stop every now and again to straighten it. At last the bolt gave way, and we had to supply a fresh one from the invaluable tool-box we carried with us. A few miles and it also broke. Then we got a bush-blacksmith to make us a new bolt, but we had not gone far when this one went like the others. We had at last to bind up the underworks of the coach with ropes and chains. While Queensland of late years can trace much of her prosperity to wool and gold, it is equally certain that she owes, and will owe, much to the discovery of tin. Stanthorpe, on the Queensland side, is the principal scene of mining operations. Two years before our visit it was a lonely sheep-station. A shepherd, who had lived unsuspecting on the spot for years, went mad with disappointment on the discovery of tin. Stan- thorpe was at this time (September 1873) the newest place we had seen in all Australia. Gympie was hoary and venerable compared to it. Stanthorpe is situated on the Quart Pot Creek. The main street, in fact the only street, is three-quarters of a mile in length gutterless, disjointed, a rough, double row of wooden houses winding through an outer chaos of huts and sand heaps. We see a large per centage of hotels " Bar," " Bar," " Bar," stares at you on every hand. There are few wooden signs in Stanthorpe, nearly all are composed of calico, and you see them fluttering from one end of the town to the other. Among the principal houses are the " Mining Exchange Hotel," the " Woolpack Inn," the ubiquitous " Sham- rock Hotel," and the " Sun Burst Tavern," with the rising orb pictured in front like a golden porcupine. We stayed at Groom's Hotel, a building of wood and corrugated iron, and a curiosity in its way. It was purchased at a railway refreshment station, transported many miles by rail and dray to Stanthorpe, and occupied within six weeks of the sale. The landlord lo6 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. united in his person the respective characters of publican, tin- buyer, and member of Parliament. The town being in a feverish, unsettled state, the hotel was crowded with boarders and busy with loungers. The first day we had dinner in com- pany with an editor, a commercial traveller, a squatter, a printer, and a railway official. We felt we were hob-nobbing with the vital interests of the place. The menu was all and more than one could have expected. We had all the delicacies of a town hotel. The landlord had the services of a famous French cook, whose name was a household word in every part of Queensland, but has somehow escaped my memory. After dinner we view the township. Going up the street we see a " Mining Agency " hut a " Commercial Agency "shanty a snuff-coloured shed occupied by a solicitor Way Hop's grocery, Tong Sing's hair-dressing establishment, Sun Kum Sang's tea-shop, Chow Wing's dry goods store the Post Office shed the telegraph office, ten feet by fourteen a wooden house with the gable knocked out for an entrance, flaunting a sign " Mr Abraham, habit-maker " a wretched hut, with a glazed cloth for the door, announcing " Fresh Oysters for Sale ;" and a " Bill-poster's Saloon," where a raffle is to be held, the bellman ringing and lustily shouting out the prizes. Frequent placards meet our eye " Roll up, roll up, electors ! Use your liberty ! Beware of Parliamentary Dodges ! " " Jones is selling Drapery cheap ! " " Currie and Rice will give their highly-seasoned Negro entertainment ! " Turning a corner, we come upon the Quart Pot Creek. Here truly was a scene of industry ! a veritable hive or unearthed ant-hill. Scores of men in a high state of activity were to be seen in the rough stony bed of the creek. Workmen were cutting down the banks on either side a depth of thirty feet or so, enabling the miners to widen their researches some were up above, loosening the earth with picks, and some were trundling it across the planks that bridged the workings. Solitary men sat plunging away at horizontal brass pumps, thirteen feet in length driving wheels, two or three feet in diameter, revolved in the water-races miners in high boots, with long eight-pronged forks, were busy in the sluice-boxes. The water in the creek is carried off by a flood-race 300 yards long and fourteen feet wide, cut out of the solid rock on the banks. The inflow of creek-water, still considerable, is drained off by two large Californian pumps. These are worked by steam, and constructed on the principle of the jack-towel and A Two- Year-Old Town. 107 theatrical waterfall. A long, broad, endless leather band, riveted with numerous wooden ledges, like the entrance to a hen-roost, revolves rapidly into the creek, and literally scrapes the water up a narrow enclosed shaft to the required level. The miners get from forty-five to fifty shillings per week. The tin-ore, which resembles turnip-seed, is sold for 62 per ton, and about 120 tons are sent off to Warwick every week. Returning from the Quart Pot Creek, we encounter stumps, bushes, boulders, fallen logs, barkless trees, heaps of sand, and square white canvas tents fluttering in the wind. Turning a corner, we pass an array of back-yards, filled with broken crockery piles of champagne, ale and beer bottles heaps of logs and firewood huts with palisades round them horses browsing in small paddocks hens and goats skipping about with here and there a Chinaman's cabbage garden. We see a humble brown church, I know not of what denomination, with the orthodox peaked door and windows, and with a bark roof straddled over by a framework of saplings a thing usually done to keep the sheets of bark from being blown off. The other churches are almost equally ill-favoured, being simply shingled weather-board buildings. The Wesleyans hold service in a shop. Again we have more huts, with smoke streaming from every crevice, caused either by a conflagration or a breakfast huts with inch-wide crannies huts built at the foot of naked trees, and constructed of the sheets of bark stripped from their bare desolate trunks. Then houses newly-painted houses dingy-looking houses redolent in fresh yellow planks houses supported on props, and surrounded by props, looking like huge insects about to crawl off. Every man seems to have been his own architect, and, as on most mining rushes, the rough appearance of the houses is more the result of necessity than poverty. People who, to keep in harmony with their dwellings, should be moving in squalor and rags, have pounds of wages and saved money. Many on this tin-field are respectable, well-connected folks, drawn by the temporary excitement to a rough way of living. One hut we entered was lined inside from top to bottom with cuttings from the illustrated papers, while over these again hung a splendid oil-painting. We gave our concerts here in the Court House, a wooden building raised on props two or three feet from the ground, with a platform outside reached by a flight of steps after the manner of "Richardson's Show." There were not enough io8 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. seats in the building, so we had to borrow from various parts of the town. We carried out the prisoners' dock, and made it the "ticket-office" the public paying their money over the long row of spikes with which the box was guarded. The jury-box was hastily filled by a party of folks who came very early literally one of the " first families." We sat ranged on the Judge's bench a " terrible show ! " The court-room was crowded and hot, and the windows had to be kept wide open, giving a full view of the performers to the large crowd which had gathered outside. On Saturday night, after our last concert, we had to return all the chairs and forms, as they were urgently wanted on the Sunday. My brothers and I had to reseat two churches before getting to bed that night ! We went to the Presbyterian Kirk next day, where we heard a most excellent sermon. The building was small and primitive- looking. The pulpit-step was a plain box with the letters XX plainly visible upon it ! There are 8000 miners in the Stanthorpe district. We saw them during two crucial periods Saturday night and Sunday morning and if there was little anxiety in the matter of church going, there was at any rate an absence of rowdyism, while their sobriety after pay-hours was much to be commended. There is a Savings Bank held in the Court House every Saturday night, with an average deposit of ^300. Land is eagerly sought after in Stanthorpe. There was a most interesting scene here in connection with some mining land which had been thrown open for selection. There was such a demand for allotments, that four or five times the number would have been necessary. So many were the applicants, that ultimately they had to be chosen by ballot. When the day came for declaring the successful applicants, the Commissioner's office was besieged by hundreds of men, women, and children. The whole town was there, and the street was filled with people. The Commissioner could not get elbow-room, and had to take refuge on the roof, from whence he read out the list of names in loud stentorian tones ! CHAPTER IX. THE NEW ENGLAND DISTRICT A BUSH INN THE HUNTER RIVER DISTRICT THE HILL END COUNTRY BATHURST. LEAVING the lively, piquant township of Stanthorpe, we crossed the Queensland border into New South Wales. On the way the coach became deeply bogged, and it was not till after great labour that we dug it out with sticks and poles. Fifteen miles out we stopped for the night at a small inn known as " Jenner's." Here one of the horses was seized with some internal complaint, and our driver was not slow to exhibit his veterinary skill. The animal's mouth was frigidly shut, but we pried it open, while Patrick emptied a bottle of hot ale and spirits down its throat. In a few minutes the horse shook its ears and was as lively as the rest of the team. Next day we travelled through country covered with stones and boulders. There were hanging rocks, and rocks piled up like rude, old- world altars boulders perched on the tops of ridges, and boulders arrested in a headlong rush down a hill slope rocks in every variety of strange beautiful fantastic form. Still further, we passed between the high towering banks of a ravine, with lofty trees shooting straight up into the sunlight from amidst a dense, dark, embowering undergrowth of vege- tation. A bush-fire was raging here quite close to us, and the grass was burning to the very edge of the road. One fire was very extensive, the flames leaping round the trunks of the trees and blazing amid grass, bushes, and stumps. Yellow pungent smoke half obscured the sky, and the^ sunlight upon the road seemed to come through coloured glass. Large patches of country were smouldering and blackened, and the distant ranges wreathed in smoke, like mountains shrouded in mist. We reached Tenterfield, a quiet border-town. We were now in the New England district of New South Wales. It stands about 4000 feet above sea-level, and has a pure, fresh, delicious climate, though we felt it rather cold. " Cold ? by Jove, this is excellent weather," cried an enthusiastic townsman, drawing HO Kennedy s Colonial Travel. in his breath with a hiss " Cold ? why, this is a glorious climate same as England every bit that is, barring the damp ! Where will you find such glowing-cheeked damsels such brown-faced sturdy young men ! I love the cold wind, bless it ! " There are 13,100 square miles -in this district. Agriculture is its main industry. Butter, milk, and eggs are scarce. In few of the hotels can you get more than a mere dribble of milk to your meals. As often as not eggs are beaten up as a substitute. The country folks do not trouble themselves much about dairy produce, as there is yet but a very uncertain market. Another town to the southward receives its supply of butter all the way from Sydney, some two or three hundred miles. A stage of thirty-five miles further brought us to Deepwater, the smallest place we ever performed in. It consisted solely of two inns about three hundred yards from each other. We had tea in the dining-room then adjourned to the kitchen, where the concert was held. Forty people managed to crowd in, and we wondered where they all came from. The acoustics, I need hardly say, were not good, and one had the feeling of singing down the throats of the audience in the front seats. Even in such a small village as this we were not free from opposition, for the other half of the town that is, the rival hotel-keeper got up a " dance " to try and charm away our audience ! On our way to Glen Innes, we passed some really fine country. But the road lay at one place near the foot of a high, naked bluff, the scene of a fearful tragedy. Eighteen blacks, who had murdered a family, were pursued by the relentless native police to this sheer precipice, and literally chased over into the abyss. The Australian bush is as a rule not very plentiful in historical associations. True, people tell you that here a notorious bush-ranger was shot here two tribes of blacks met in deadly encounter here an early explorer arrived in one of his expeditions here an entire family was drowned in a flood here a famous nugget was discovered. But the events have not the charm of antiquity, and your interest is mainly concentrated on the natural beauties of the country, and the cheerful evidences of settlement. Glen Innes is an agricultural township, finely situated amidst fertile country. The hall here was an auction-room. We had the job of piling up some scores of heavy bags of tin-ore to form a basis for the platform. Talking of bags reminds me of The New England District. in another place we were at, where the seating consisted of planks laid on sugar-bags. Early in the evening many of the bags burst, and if the audience did not take the entertainment with "a grain of salt," they at any rate helped themselves liberally to the sugar! The hotel at Glen Innes was full of commercial tra- vellers, and one or two of our party had to sleep in some odd beds constructed in a building at the rear. As usual, one common roof covered a number of partitions, which were merely calico screens. In one compartment a Chinese barber was plying his trade, and we had to endure the disagreeable odour of soap- suds. Towels were scarce, and it was highly comical to see a man wiping his face on the loose fragments of the calico partitions "drying his face on the walls," as he called it. The hotel people had run short of calico in one instance, and had filled up the gap with old election banners, " Peace and plenty! Vote for Fipps ! " and so on. The commercials made the night hideous by prolonged revelry in the hotel parlour. They clanked glasses, slapped the table with their hands, shouted, stamped with their feet, engaged in vociferous discussions, and bellowed out the gems of British melody. Eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock, one, two! It was not till close upon three o'clock in the morning that the commercial interest felt depres- sion and departed to its couch. The groom at this hotel was a New Zealand man. Of course he had the usual romantic history. Three years ago he was worth ^4000. He had one of the best hotels in Auckland, .and owned a racer, valued at 200 guineas a large sum for a horse in the colonies. One of his troubles consisted in that the animal was drugged and poisoned when he had backed ^1000 upon it. He had also failed in mining. Like hun- dreds of others, he took up mining scrip, upon which he had paid " calls " till nearly every penny had been spent. As he said himself, busy curry-combing a horse, :< Now, I'm a poor man, grooming but I just grin and bear it ; I've come here where nobody knows me." There are scores of similar histories in the colonies. Were a human wreck-chart of Australia pub- lished, what a speckled map would be presented ! Before starting for Inverell we made diligent inquiry as to the number of miles we had to travel. In Australia you are never sure of road or distance. There are no mile-stone:* for one thing there are numerous tracks, for another and^fcere are short cuts, most perplexing of all. We consulted .the commercials at Glen Innes, and roused quite a debate. " Say 112 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. what you like, its twenty-nine miles. Yes, it's all that, if it's a yard. Ah ! you mean twenty by Griffin's sheep-run. I mean by the creek and through the slip-rail, running down by the five-mile house. Now, what's the good of you saying it's thirty ? that's the old road the coach goes a different track now, the drays have cut the other up so badly besides, there's no crossing at Beery Bob's place now there's a big hole in the middle of the bridge ! I wouldn't advise the gentlemen to take any other than the one I mean, unless they go over the Range, and then their horses would have to be fed on ivy to climb that !" We spent a Sunday in Inverell, and went to the Presbyterian Church. There was an attentive, respectable congregation of honest, healthy-looking country-folks. There was not any ap- proach to gaudiness of dress or affected gentility. They were decent people with their Sunday clothes on. Many of them had come on horseback, and the animals browsed outside the church until the conclusion of the service. Before entering the church, we had noticed a man tugging vigorously at the bell-rope. When the congregation had been " rung in," he hurried to the precentor's desk and led the psalms. Then later he whipped round with the collection-plate. Lastly, he saw the congregation out, and carefully locked the door. He was only equalled in versatility by a man we saw in Kilmore, Victoria, who was at one and the same time the Presbyterian church-warden, the town-crier, the bill-poster, and the Inspector of Nuisances ! At Inverell we wished to buy a saddle-horse. Patrick hap- pened to mention that fact to the stableman, and in half-an-hour the news had spread all over the town. The street was soon busy with horses of every variety, and with all kinds of vices. My brothers and I had [a hard time of it cantering up and down the road, trying the different hacks. At last we hit upon a small wiry horse, for which the extravagant sum of six guineas was asked ! He was an insignificant-looking, meek-faced animal, but we added to its dignity. by calling it " the General." He turned out well, not only " in the field," but also on the road. Armidale was the last town we visited in this New England district. It is the centre of an astonishingly fertile tract of country. Farms meet the eye in every direction. There is little of the squatting interest. The land is cut up into innum- erable sections, and there are a proportionate number of happy, How we Travelled. 1 1 3 contented, jolly farmers. We chanced to be in Armidale also on a Sunday, and found there was a most prosperous, numer- ously-attended Presbyterian Church. The congregation, as at Inverell, was drawn from miles round ; but we saw no horses tied up anywhere. At the conclusion of the service, however, when we thought every one had disappeared, lo ! from behind one end of the church there came a long procession of people on horseback. Down they came, riding in couples, the horses' hoofs crunching along the narrow, heavily-gravelled walk that ran past one side of the church. There were young ladies with long black dresses young men in leggings and bright spurs little boys on big farm-horses rough bushmen on frisky steeds burly farmers on muscular, well-knit horses. As the equestrians emerged into the open ground in front of the church, they parted company, rode off in small groups, and were soon invisible amongst the houses and the by-roads round about. The minister of this church is hard-worked, for in addition to his many duties in Armidale, he holds service at thirty-four different places every three months. He preaches in the town once a fortnight to a congregation large enough for his whole undivided energies. But ministers are scarce and the country sparsely settled. The colonial clergymen certainly live laborious days. We heartily enjoyed our travelling. In the morning, just before the first streaks of daylight, we rose in the cold and the darkness, and made ready for the journey. Our driver busied himself in the stable by candle-light, giving the horses their oats and putting on the harness. We drew the coach out into the stable-yard then took the wheels off, one at a time, and gave the axles a dose of castor-oil from a bottle which Patrick carried about with him for use equally on wheels and horses. The coach was packed then off we started, Patrick smacking his whip, or " flagellator," as he called it, and our heavy dog Uno bounding in front. Poor beast ! he had many a weary scamper alongside that coach. But he enjoyed him- self in his own way. Now he would dash wickedly through the bush, after some innocent sheep now hear a rustling in the grass, and follow a snake to its nest in a hollow log now rush excitedly after a drove of kangaroos now sniff a tree for some hidden opossum. One day he would be splashed all over with black mud another day powdered over with white sand next day covered from head to tail in red loam ac- cording to the various districts we passed through. We had H 114 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. glorious canters in the bush ; for by this time we had improved in our horsemanship. We had felt a little diffident at first, as everybody rides in Australia. There is no country in the world where the horse is more of a boon or a necessity. The boy who chuckles at you behind your back can ride so can the grey-headed old man who seems scarcely active enough for a walk. We have seen men galloping with baskets of eggs and cans of milk or water, and have observed a mother with her infant in arms riding along with all the appearance of comfort. Every brown-faced country lass can do her trot and canter not always with a side-saddle, but sometimes in a very un- ladylike position, " a la clothes-pin," as the Yankees have it ! We had great experience of Australian hotels. Taken as a whole, they were excellent. The accommodation was good so was the " table." Meat of course entered largely into the fare. This might be expected in a country where beef is from fourpence to fivepence a pound, and mutton threepence a pound. The colonials eat a good deal of butcher-meat. A bush-farmer, a Scotsman, once said to us, " What wad the folks in Scotland think o' pleughmen gettin' mutton to eat in the mornins ? We have cauld mutton to breakfast, cauld mutton to dinner, an' cauld mutton to tea. We're weel aff, I can tell ye ! " The charges in the hotels vary from six shillings to ten shillings a day, according to the quality of the house or the size of the township. This payment covers everything. There are no vague additional items such as " Attendance," or "Beds," or "Boots," or "Lights." You know exactly what you have to pay. Of course there is no law forbidding you to tip the waiter or stableman before driving off but that is about the fullest extent to which anything is "looked for." While the accommodation in the country hotels is good, we cannot say so much for the bush-inns, as the houses in the less-settled parts are called. Hot, tired, dusty, thirsty, travelling through the lonely, end- less bush, amid the unvarying fragrance of the gum trees, we come to a bush-inn, the " Traveller's Rest." We see its white- painted sides and its iron roof shining through the trees. We push forward in haste. The very horses prick up their ears and quicken their pace. In a few minutes we draw up to the door. Immediately in front of it stands a tall white post sup- porting an empty square frame, from which the sign-board has broken away. A red-faced, sandy-whiskered man in tight trousers and a striped flannel shirt, with a halter dangling over A BusJi Inn. 115 his arm, takes the horses round to the stable. In the bar, a bullock-driver is asleep upon a small three-legged stool, his head upon his arms, leaning on an ale cask that stands in one corner, and from which an occasional draught is tapped by the landlord for two swagmen who have just dropped in. A trooper has dismounted from his horse, and is sitting on a form outside, reading the latest paper from the nearest township. At the side of the door a magpie chatters in a large round wicker cage. Going to the stable, we cross a rotten plank or two, that, from the slushing sound they make, seem to cover something sodden. We come upon dirty-faced, shaggy-headed children dogs snuffing at old bones hens pecking at cold potatoes and many pigs quarrelling in a small stye. The scene is backed by one or two drunken-looking out-houses, which seem ready to topple over, the whole strata of the- walls being many degrees off the perpendicular. Close to the stable stands an old buggy, and near the door lie half-a-dozen horse- collars, a set of chain-harness, a pitchfork, a dingy stable-lamp, and an old brandy-case strewn with stray oats and chaff, the remains of some horse's alfresco feed. The interior of the stable is far from cheerful. A thin layer of straw barely covers the earth in the floor of the stalls. The planks that compose the walls are wide apart, many of them swing loose, and a cold wind blows through and through the stable. Oats are handled with great care and delicacy by the stableman, who deals them out in homoeopathic doses. Dinner being ready, we enter the parlour. The walls are merely papered canvas, and bulge inwards with every puff of wind. The window is shaded by a white blind that is semi- detached from the roller and hangs down in a long dog's ear. The wide yawning fire-place, full of white powdery dead embers, resembles the mouth of a railway tunnel, for the smoke has curled out and blackened the wall immediately above. The grimy, sooty mantelpiece is occupied by empty pickle-bottles, two noseless, armless China statues, a tattered, crimson-backed copy of Beeton's Cookery Book, and a tiny pocket thermometer, the mercury of which has broken its little bulb and trickled away in disgust at not being able to register anything but smoke. The table is covered with a walnut-coloured glazed cloth, the veneer of which having scaled off in many places, shows the rough canvas beneath. At one end is spread a white cover, blotched with extensive yellow stains caused by the spilt coffee of some preceding guest There are two dishes Ii6 Kennedy's Colonial Travel. an immense piece of corned beef, and a plateful of ham and eggs. The floor being uneven, you are in continual oscillation on your seat. The cruet-stand, formerly a tripod, has lost a foot, and now leans over invitingly towards us. The carving- blade is broad at the tip and curved like a scimitar ; the common knives, through long-continued sharpening, look like daggers ; the tarnished, dinted dish-covers are ranged on a side-table like shields. We feel we are dining in an armoury. A dog appears on one side, and puts its paws upon the table a lean cat stands opposite and claws away at the cloth I sit between a hungry, rampant coat-of-arms. The pudding turns out to be a long, dry rolly-polly, the jelly of which seems to have lost itself in one of the numerous convolutions. Tea is brought in a large metal pot about eighteen inches in height, and is found to be obnoxious. The bread, too, is unpalatable, and when sliced down you see running through it veins of raw, white dough. The cups are plain, coarse, grey-coloured, with rims a quarter of an inch thick ; while the spoons are of a very miscellaneous nature, there being an egg spoon, a salt spoon, a German silver spoon, and a leaden spoon wherewith to stir our tea. Three of us are quartered in one bedroom, and accommodated with what are called "swagmen's beds." The pillows are stuffed with straw, and the wisps stick into our ears. We sleep under the national tricolour red, white, and blue a rough red- threaded coverlet, a thin blue blanket, and a thinner white sheet. Another sheet separates us from the barred trestle beneath, and we feel as if sleeping along a ladder. One window serves two rooms, the partition coming right in the middle of it. As the window is open, and a breeze blowing, we try to shut it, but find the gentleman next door has propped it up with the hair-brush. The wall on one side is a wainscoated partition, and a cataract of rats and mice pours unceasingly through it. The other is the usual calico screen, and when we blow out our candle we are startled by seeing, in gigantic shadow-pantomime, the whole of our neighbour's nocturnal toilette. Just as we are dozing off, we hear angry voices in the bar a crashing of glasses, a scuffling of feet, yells, blows, and foul language recrimination, threats, and female outcries for the police. Suddenly the sounds mellow down, and we know the combatants have been bundled into the open air. Lightly dressing ourselves, we hurry out. The space in front of the A MidnigJit Fight. 1 1 7 hotel is filled with a noisy crowd of men. In the middle of them stands a short, purple-faced, inebriated man, with dis- ordered hair and ensanguined nose. He is mildly denouncing everybody with a general wave of the hand " Cowards all of you I'm only a poor butcher you're a lot of curs I'm from the Moon-bi Range up there seen skittles ? well, knock you all down like skittles you're a confounded pack of ." " Shut up, will you ! " roars another drunken fellow, bringing his fist down on the butcher's nose. Purple-face retaliates, but missing his aim, hits another individual full in the chest This introduces a new combatant, who, in turn, becomes embroiled with some one else. At length there is a general melee. In the thick of all is the Moon-bi man, whose nose is punched by everyone consecutively. On the outskirts of the throng, the landlady tugs at the coat-tails of her husband, who is mixed up with the fight The stableman excitedly rushes round with a lantern, and, standing on an inverted wheel-barrow, throws a glimmer of light upon the scene. For full five minutes there is continued shouting, kicking, and tearing of hair. Suddenly the crowd opens and the poor butcher is projected violently against a wooden fence, frightening a number of hitched-up horses, who snap their bridles and vanish into darkness, followed by their half-sobered owners. The butcher sits for a time scratching his head, and meekly muttering vengeance; but eventually, with the assistance of some of his late foes, he picks himself up and staggers into the bar, where he abruptly falls asleep over a " nobbier " of schiedam. It will be long ere we forget our day at this bush-inn, and our midnight introduc- tion to the man of the Moon-bi. We had dull times travelling down from Armidale in the New England district. At Tamworth, however, some sixty-two miles south of Armidale, there was great talk about the capture of a party of bushrangers. They had committed robberies away up in the interior of Queensland, on the Barcoo River, and had been tracked by mounted police down through Southern Queensland, across the Border, through New England, past Armidale, and into the vicinity of Tamworth, where they were caught after severe resistance. We had frequently heard in our travels of bushrangers, but had never before been so near the scene of their capture, or so soon after the event Sixty miles further south, at Murrurundi, we reached the Great Northern Railway, which extends to the port of Newcastle, a distance of 120 miles. Murrurundi was one of the most beautifully situated 1 1 8 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. places -we had seen. We sighted it when coming round the spur of a hill, on the Liverpool Range the town lying beneath us on a plain, in a valley formed by unusually high mountains. Then we took the train to Singleton, passing on the way Muscle- brook and Scone, two healthy-looking pretty towns. The weather during this month of October was very pleasant. On our second visit to this district, however, which was during December, the heat was uncommonly intense. The town of Scone fully bore out its name, for it was baked. The ther- mometer stood for several days at 142 in the sun, and 110 in the shade. Whenever you left the shelter of a verandah you felt the solar rays instantly striking down upon you. The grass was grey and went into powder beneath your feet the earth was as dry as cinders great bush-fires raged in the mountains, grasshoppers were to be seen in myriads on every meadow and field mosquitoes sang loudly everywhere ; and going to your bed at night, you would find an enormous tarantula spider, like a small crab, crawling on your looking- glass or climbing up the walls. The forests of Victoria, also, were ablaze from one end of the country to the other, and such overpowering heat had not been known for many years. At Scone we were almost compelled to keep indoors, and it was there that, seeing a drayman standing in the hotel-porch, we remarked that the weather was hot. " Hot ! " he rejoined, " I should think it was ! every time a bullock passes me I smells beef-steaks." Maitland, the second city in New South Wales, and the chief town of this Hunter District, was a great surprise to us. It was an extensive place, substantial, and well-built. The Hunter River runs close at the back of the town. At home Maitland was always associated in my mind with floods. As we walked about, old flood-marks were pointed out to us. The flats on each side of the town, and in fact the whole of the level country in this large Hunter District, owe their unparalleled fertility to the occasional overflowing of the river. "I tell you as a solemn fact," said a Maitland man, "the crops would fail, and the town would languish, if we did not have a flood at least every three years." Though we were at Maitland during some heavy showers, yet the down-pour was not fortunately so steady and so long continued as to produce any visible effect upon the river. A week or two, however, after we had left, there was a flood which almost surpassed the memorable one of 1863. The Hunter rose forty-three feet, and laid the whole district under Maitland. 119 water. The streets of Maitland were impassable save by row- boats. Valuable property bordering on the river was com- pletely swept away. Several persons were drowned, and many barely escaped with their lives. Happily the flood was not of long duration, and matters soon got back to their old way. No doubt, for the next two or three years the crops will be unusually good. From Maitland we again took the rail to Newcastle, leaving behind us the most fertile district in the colony, "the Granary of New South Wales." Through smoke and stir past busy collieries, chimney-stalks, heaps of coal, and long rows of laden trucks we approached the great Port Hunter. We saw a fleet of shipping lying in the docks a crowd of vessels standing out at anchor and a host of small steamboats puffing out and in. On our left stretched a wharf lined with coal-shoots, covered with avenues of trucks, and lively with locomotives. New- castle rose on our right lying up against a hill-face, the inner side of a headland overlooking the ocean the town seeming as if it had been drifted there by some unusually strong breeze. Like its namesake, Newcastle flourishes on immense exports of coal. Besides that required for the Australian market, it ships coal to China, India, California, and South America. We noticed that the yield for one week amounted to 12,638 tons. We came back from Newcastle to Musclebrook, and resumed our coach and horses, which we had left there while we went down by rail. Our route now lay across country, along what was not by any means a high road. We purposed reaching Gulgong, the latest gold-field of the colony, 124 miles inland, in five days. We had pleasant travelling to Denman, a small village fifteen miles from Musclebrook, where we stayed all night. Here Patrick had a quarrel with the innkeeper as to which of them should clean out the stable. Upon our not backing him up in his imaginary grievance, he threw up his engagement with us, and next morning we awoke in time to see Patrick far in the distance trudging back to Musclebrook. Here was a dilemma ! We were left with a coach and horses on our hands no other driver was to be had none of us had ever driven a team before. But a relative of ours, " Tom " by name, who travelled with us as business-agent, volunteered to drive the coach. We left in the early morning, and toiled successfully through the bush till mid-day, when we rested three hours by the side of a creek. In the afternoon, as we were ascending a soft sandy hill, the coach stuck. The horses were I2O Kennedy s Colonial Travel. not to be budged by any amount of lashing. Tired out though we were by a whole day's hard jolting, heat, and some miles of hill climbing, we hauled out the heavier part of the luggage. The two leaders jibbed, and we unharnessed them, that the willing pole-horses might work. With painful exertion they ploughed the coach obliquely up the hill for twenty or thirty yards. Then we unloaded the remainder of the luggage. The two horses set off again, but gradually drifted round beyond the control of the driver. They dragged the coach across the hill, and edged their way down the slope. The horses came so sharply round that the vehicle gradually began to tilt over. We could see the wheels lifting slowly off the ground, at first then quicker and quicker while Tom sprawled over towards the higher side of the box, and latterly jumped off unhurt, dragging the reins after him, as the coach went down with a loud crash. The horses stood quietly, and nibbled at grass. We tied them beside the others, and with branches of trees pried the coach round, so that we could lift it into position down hill. Within five minutes it was on its wheels. We carried the nearer heap of luggage up the long hill then went further down and brought up the heavier baggage. By the time we were ready to start, we came to the conclusion that we had never known fatigue before. Daylight had vanished long ere we had arrived at Merriwa. It was the first time we had travelled through thick bush on a dark night. The horses seemed to feel their way instinctively. One of our folks, riding ahead of us, threw over his back a broad white handkerchief, as a faint guide to the turns of the road. After a time we could scarcely see either horse, rider, or handkerchief, but we kept up a series of whistles and shouts as a link between us. One of our cries was " Coo-oo-oo-ee ! " a bush- call which the whites have borrowed from the aboriginals a long drawn, low set sound, suddenly jerking up into a loud acute shriek, heard at great distances. As we drove into the township, the folks came out, astonished at this untimely ap- pearance of a coach, and the road was bright with the light that shone through the open doors. The day following we reached Cassilis, twenty-eight miles further, where we remained overnight. Then off we went again, arriving at a rough wayside inn, half-way to Gulgong from Cassilis. The house lay on one side of a creek, and the gully was crossed by the most dangerous bridge it has ever been our bad fortune to see. " Bridge " one could hardly call it, for 121 it was a mere layer or raft of branches thrown loosely across, and filled in with twigs. It was narrow, too, and reached by a sharp descent, so that there was great danger. As the coach jolted over it, the ends of the saplings came flying up one after the other, like the hammers of a piano in a brilliant chromatic scale. At this small hotel the landlord fed us on promises. Every remonstrance we made as to the scarcity of bedding for the horses, or the paucity of diet for ourselves, was received with one unvarying formula " I'll do the best I can for you, and I can't do more !" He was a type of many hotel-keepers one meets with in the bush. They chop wood, cultivate small plots of ground, have a paddock or two, own a few horses, and manage an inn merely as an adjunct to other business. The isolated situation of this particular landlord gave him a mono- poly, and he was content with serving travellers as if he never expected to see them again. On the fifth day we made an early start, and arrived about eight o'clock at a creek, where we made an excellent breakfast. About two o'clock we reached Gulgong, passing near the town through acres of abandoned gold claims. We had to drive along a narrow path in the midst of innumerable uncouth holes the locality appearing like the site of some forest of gigantic trees which had been suddenly torn up by the roots. It was a scene of glaring, bewildering confusion. The track wildly wriggled through the embanking mounds of sand, in despair of ever reaching the town, till it emerged entirely from the chaos, and joyfully darted like an arrow down the main street. Gulgong is a large collection of corrugated-iron buildings shops with great square signs, more prominent than elegant Chinamen's bazaars hastily-built hotels, displaying attractive banners slim cottages, wooden churches, temporary offices, and weather-board banks. The whole place was in the highest degree new. The streets were filled with crowds of miners. The hotel was busy with men inquiring after the manager of this, and the inspector of that some wishing to deposit money in a "benefit society some waiting for their wages. We have a feeling to this day that we were living at Gulgong in a bustling, enterprising community. We were five days here, and then left for Mudgee, a stage of eighteen miles. On the way, there occurred the most serious accident we had in all our travels. My father and mother were driving quietly along in the buggy. There was a hot sun, and 122 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. the horse " Billy " was not in a good humour at all. To waken him up a little, my father gave him a touch of the whip. In a moment "Billy" threw up his hind legs one of them got jammed behind the swingle-bars, and away he wildly bolted on three legs. As on most bush-roads, stumps were plentiful, and "Billy" darted over one of these ; but the front axle came with terrible force upon the stump. My father, thrown out by the shock, fell fortunately on his hands, and escaped unhurt. My mother was shot out violently against a fallen tree, her face striking full upon the rugged trunk. The harness gave way at once, and " Billy " rolled into a trench or furrow of the road just large enough to hold him tight. He lay helpless on his back, with all his hoofs elevated safely in the air a providential occurrence. My mother was picked up insensible, her face covered with blood from some abrasions on the forehead. We laid her at the foot of a tree, where there was some little shade from the burning sun. After her face had been bathed with water, which we brought from a distant creek, my mother opened her eyes and spoke. Two of us galloped back some miles to get vinegar and brandy, while the rest repaired the damage done to the buggy. The shafts had to be bound up with splints the swingle-bars held together with rope the harness mended with twine. By the time we were ready to start, my mother had greatly recovered. When we arrived at Mudgee, we called in a doctor, and in a few days our patient was off the sick list. Sad to relate, the doctor was shortly afterwards drowned while fording a swollen creek not far from the scene of our accident. We had a standing line in our programmes : " Ladies and gentlemen arriving late will kindly oblige by remaining in the lobby till the conclusion of a song ! " To suit all the strange places we sang in, this should have been altered to "kindly oblige by remaining on the stair," " kindly oblige by remaining in the bar," " kindly oblige by remaining in the vestry," " kindly oblige by remaining in the jury-room," "kindly oblige by remaining in the open air;" and so on. The regulation was the cause of some trouble in Mudgee. One evening, during the third song on the programme, a gentleman demanded admit- tance. The doorkeeper politely requested him to remain out- side, but he tried to force his way in, his hat coming off in the attempt. His friends immediately magnified this into an assault by our doorkeeper, who had all the time remained on the defensive. When the song had concluded, the indignant gentleman called out the whole of his party, twelve in number, Incidents at our Concerts. 123 who had gone in before the concert commenced. Their money was returned to them, and they left the hall. Those of the audience near the door were astonished " Do you know who that is ? that's Mr Z., the biggest bug we have ! " Next day, a gentleman called on us in a friendly way at the hotel, deplor- ing the occurrence, and offering to carry an apology from us to Mr Z., so as to stop any legal action! Of course we declined the offer, for we knew from the testimony of bystanders that our doorkeeper had not gone beyond his instructions. That evening a brass band planted, yea rooted itself under the window nearest to the platform, and played loudlyall through the concert. We offered them a large sum to move on, but they told us candidly they "were paid more money than that to come there !" The incident created some stir in the community. The papers unanimously sided with us, one journal in a neigh- bouring town devoting two columns to a humorous discussion of the matter. As a rule, the public took favourably to this regulation. Sometimes two or three young ladies, on being kept out, would tee-hee, and say to each other, " It's just like being at church !" sometimes a man would growl, " Is this a prayer-meeting ? " sometimes a fellow would turn angrily on his heel, go away, change his mind, and return in the middle of a crowd with the air of having just arrived ! But, as a general thing, our audience thanked us for the quietness that prevailed during the singing of a song. On our bills we had also the more common rule : "Children in arms not admitted." It was amusing to notice the way this was evaded. Very often the fond mother would place her infant against the wall, saying, "Ye see the puir thing can stand ! " and again it was no uncommon thing to see a father and mother dragging a suckling between them, almost dislocat- ing its arms, till they got it past the door. In large towns this rule acted well enough ; but in the wide-settled country districts, where our concerts were advertised as much by rumour as by bills, people in ignorance of the " stern law" came long distances with children in arms. Then it was that our materfamilias had a pleasant duty to perform ; for my mother, taking compassion on her country-women anxious to hear a " Scotch sang," looked after their babes in an adjoining room during the concert. Very often she had three or four of these valuable charges at once, the mothers coming out during the " Interval of Ten Minutes " to pet the infants, or give them their natural nourishment. Mudgee to Hill End was our next journey. The bush was 124 Kennedy's Colonial Travel. the same as ever the same logs, stumps, dry leaves, and tinder trees blackened and gutted out by camp fires trees bare- looking, with the bark lying curled up at their roots, like immense cinnamon-stalks trees lying stranded on the banks each side of the road, their high limbs projecting like masts, their under-branches crushed and shivered and trees bereft of foliage, giving large patches of bush the anomalous appearance of bleak winter under a melting sun. Ant hills lined each side of the road sandy heaps, two and three feet high, swarming with bloated, purple insects. We found the ascents to be awful. Looking from the top of a ridge over the great, wide, black sea of forest, we saw the white road dipping away down out of sight amidst the density of the trees, appearing again on a hill side, sinking once more, emerging higher still, and rising almost vertically to the brow of the opposite heights. We stayed for the night at " Hargreave's," the place where gold was first found in New South Wales. Next day we had soft boggy ground to cross, and steep gullies to ascend. We had several times to jump out of the coach and fill up gaps in the middle of the road with branches and logs crossed over each other, the holes looking as if they had been darned with saplings. We reached the Hill End country a wild, vast, mountainous region, that appears on the map like a nest of caterpillars an undulating heaving expanse, full of majestic, deep lying views, with a succession of high rounded hills and towering timbered peaks stretching away to the bluest distance. There was not a foot of level ground as far as the eye could see. We had a succession of hills to ascend one of them two miles long, a dreary remembrance to us of hoarse yells, thumpings, lashings, and panting horses. At the top there was a smooth, hard road, and in a short time we were in Hill End. The town is excited over its first municipal election. We find the chief street closely packed with human beings eagerly expecting the appearance of the candidates on the hustings a platform erected in front of the Metropolitan Hotel. We can get nowhere near it, so coach and horses are driven to the hotel-yard by a back street. The crowd is composed principally of miners, who have just left off work, and appear in their every- day clothes. The candidates address the populace. The first, crushing his felt hat under his arm with the earnestness of his speech, vows he will do his utmost to economise the public funds. " Hurrah." The second, almost twisting the buttons An Election Scene. 125 off his coat, declares he will go in for free education. " Good for you ! " The third, running both hands nervously through his hair, announces his fixed intention of devoting himself to the mining interest. " Go it, old chap ! " The fourth, with clenched uplifted fists, denounces vehemently the opposition he has received from the despicable Teetotal, Masonic, Good Templars', and Odd Fellows' Societies. At this there is tre- mendous uproar, and those in front make loud slighting remarks as to the speaker's parentage and fitness for aldermanic honours. A solitary " Hear, hear " from over the way, pro- duces in that quarter a decided commotion. The mingled groans, hisses, whistles, and yells are something deafening, and make the narrow thoroughfare ring again. In the midst of it all, a rough drunken fellow reels out of the bar, and with extended arms staggers edgeways down the steps into the street. Tearing off his hat, he waves it in the air, shouts " Vote for Joe," and is struck a violent partisan blow by some one in the crowd. A fight ensues, the mob throng round, and a policeman, with his hands stuck out before him, wedges through to preserve order. A two-horse waggonette charges amongst the people. Six men are in it. One, disguised in elegant whiskers and a long red pasteboard nose, upholds a blue banner on a striped pole "Vote for the True Man." Amid loud laughter the vehicle drives on, followed by a score of cabs, each bearing a motto. "Vote for the Pure Patriot." "Vote for the Old Sticker who intends to make the Hill End his Home !" " Don't vote for the Swindler that called you all Swindlers !" "Electors, support the man that looks after the Cash ! " The whole hotel is in a fever, and resounds with cries for refreshment. I manage to catch the waiter's ear for one moment "Awful crowd, eh ? you must be off your legs almost ? " " Me ? ho, ho ! bless you, two years ago during the rush, this used to be everyday work. I'm just getting into my old way again ! " When the result of the polling is announced, another wave of excitement sweeps over Hill End. Our landlord of the " Metropolitan " is one of the nine successful candidates, and treats everyone to free drinks. Brandy and whisky are served out with all expedition, and there is a continued feu de joie of popping lemonade. The town lies in almost inaccessible country. I have given some idea of the road from Mudgee to Hill End, but the country between the latter place and Bathurst is not much better. Every stick of furniture, every article of domestic use, had to come 126 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel, from Bathurst, up Monkey Hill, a terrible ascent, of which I shall speak presently so that there has been considerable energy and enterprise expended beyond that shown in the develop- ment of the quartz reefs. The first population of 16,000 has diminished to a fraction of that number, the town having fallen into a less feverish and more regular way of doing. We visited the chief wonder of the district, Hawkins' Hill, where are situated the principal reefs. It was the grandest and most picturesque mining spot we had ever cast eyes on. A great bluff or projecting headland stretches out and overhangs the Valley of the Turon. The outer point of it slopes sharply down to the level country bordering on the river, while on each side of the ridge are immense ravines 1500 feet deep. Along the side of one of these gorges, some sixty feet or so down from the brow of the hill, stretches the long close row of mines a series of low shelving, iron roofed buildings -disgorging torrents of stone and mineral refuse down the precipitous slopes of the ravine. Pack-horses are employed carrying the quartz to the upper ground, some of it in hempen bags, some in raw hide sacks. A wire tramway has been thrown, at a giddy height, across the gorge, for the conveyance of quartz to a battery high up on the opposite hill. The double wire is supported by lofty wooden trellis pillars, which look as if the first blast would sweep them off. The full quartz bags are hooked on one wire and drawn up, while the empty bags return on the other. In July of 1872, fifteen tons of quartz out of Holtermann's claim yielded 7000 oz. of gold ; and at Paxton's, in February of the same year, a crushing of five tons produced noo oz. This last claim once realised ^2 5,000 during a single fortnight ; and in March of 1872, the Paxton Gold Mining Company was floated, with a capital of ;i 60,000. Our journey to Wattle Flat, the first stage to Bathurst, was really pictorial. We breakfasted twelve miles out at a bush inn,, which lay not far from Monkey Hill. In Australia you generally find an inn at the top or bottom of a long heavy hill. While here, we made inquiries as to a shorter road, but were told by a man that it was impassable. Said he, " There's not a drink to be had." " What ? " said we " no water for the horses ? " " Yes," he replied, " there's water, but there's no drink for the drivers there ain't a public-house the whole way ! " Our first trouble was the descent of Monkey Hill, a dangerous place a short time ago, though it has now been macadamised of half its terrors. It is two and a half miles The Turon Valley. 127 long a winding road, with steep stone-built embankments along the face of deep ravines the wheels of the coach almost skimming the edge of a precipice on our left hand, while high rocky cuttings rose up on our right. The road at some of the abrupt turns seemed to be running out into mid-air, and at these points was inclined inwards for security. Once, while turning the corner of a hill, we swung round into a burst of scenery unequalled by anything we had as yet seen in Aus- tralia wide, immense, sunny plains spreading beneath us, with occasional cloud shadows, and hills rising tumultuously around. After we had worn out a couple of old boot-heels on the brake, we arrived at the foot of this long hill. The next section of the journey lay through the Valley of the Turon. We struck the river at one part the road running along the dry stony channel, with high echoing cliffs towering on either hand, and the wind blowing coldly through the defile. Further on, the road passed through rich, red earthy country. Skirting high ground, we suadenly turned, and lo ! beneath us, close under our feet, we beheld Sofala a bird's-eye view of corrugated-iron roofs shining, some glittering, in the sun. We could have dropped stones down the chimneys. The town lies close to the Turon, which is backed by large treeless knolls, smooth and rounded like the cone of sifted sand in an hour- glass the red loam showing dimly through the thin green coating of grass. Paths are cut through these hills at places, looking like deep fleshy scars. Even the road on which we were travelling could be traced far ahead by its bright colour. Sofala we found to be a defunct mining town, apparently given over to whisky and Chinamen, the latter dabbling and " fossicking " for bare life along the bed of the river. Bathurst lies on an exposed slope on the south side of the Macquarie river, without shade or shelter, and is built largely of brick looking, as a facetious Governor once said, as if it had been spread out there to bake. As we drove along -the streets we saw stores, warehouses, banks, large drapery estab* lishments, and fine hotels. There was a good deal of traffic, too, and plenty of people on the pavements. The streets are wide and rectangular. In the centre of the town is a large square, occupied by a gloomy jail and a bright new market. At Bathurst we ended our coach-travelling in New South Wales. We placed our vehicles and horses in the hands of Messrs Choker, Spott, & Co., and on the day fixed we went to the saleyards. About fifty persons were assembled. There 128 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. were big burly men with thick walking-sticks and stout gold chains ; grooms odorous of stables ; sporting characters in tight trousers ; a butcher or two in blue ; some few men in shirt sleeves ; one or two youngsters ; a dissolute fellow in shabby clothes ; several confidential friends of the auctioneers ; and a number of respectable young farmers. Mr Choker, mounting a little rostrum, banged for silence with a stiff paper roll. " Jack, trot out number one, Macgregor, branded X over Z on off shoulder a good chesnut make a capital hack ten pounds offered M'Cash, this is your lot. Fetch Polly, the bay mare ah, I call her something worth while, my friends she's good either in saddle or in harness, single or double will any one lend me the money to buy her? eight pounds eight, eight she's leg weary just now, but she'll pick herself up again in a paddock twelve going at twelve ! Here's Billy, a strong horse as you see and there's an action for you what an action ! " " Yes, an action for damages look at his legs ! " growled the seedy man. "Horse never kicked in his life," said Mr Choker sharply ; " ten pounds there's muscle for you put a ton be- hind him, and see what he'd do." " Yes, he'd stand," echoed Growler. " Now, Beery, if you don't want him, dry up ! fourteen going gone ! What do you say to this fine brute Andy there's an arched neck if you like ! " Beery gave a grunt, and several others laughed. One man burst out with : " That horse's head's loaded with pig-iron ; look how he hugs it between his legs ! " " Out with the grey horse, Mr Spott, branded VW conjoined on near shoulder," cried Mr Choker, getting desper- ate, and slapping down his hat. " Who bids for this magnifi- cent Arab ? " Growler commenced to say something about " Street Arab," but a bystander jerked out his elbow at him, and said, " Keep quiet, will you ! you're a regular noosance ! " The " General " was now brought forward. " Buy him for the Museum," said a big farmer, poking the horse in the ribs with his stout stick. The company did not laugh at the little pony " Jessy," who had been with us in all 'our journeyings. " There is a nuggety animal for you," said Mr Choker, as Mr Spott wheeled the mare round the yard " a good stamp of a pony can carry a lady as safe's an arm-chair none of you bid ? four guineas five six really, my feelings, gents ! eight going gone ! " Then they all went out to the coach, which was drawn up to the pavement. The only likely customer was Mr Smith, in the market-gardening line. He thought the vehicle too large for his wants, and so the matter ended. It The Zig-Zag Railway. 1 29 may be as well to state that horse-flesh has not at all the same value here that it has in the old country. The price for a good animal is of course rising in the colonies, but still you can get horses for a half or even a third of the price ruling at home. From Bathurst we went by rail to Goulburn a distance of 250 miles. Thirty miles of a journey, and we approached the famous Zig-Zag Railway across the Blue Mountains. The train entered the Lithgow Valley a deep ravine with steep precipitous banks, up one of which the train climbed by means of viaducts. Bold irregular pillars of rock rose from the bottom of the valley, and there was a general rough stony grandeur. The railway is a gigantic letter Z. The train puffed up, till at a certain point it came to a standstill. Then it shunted away back up a higher elevation, the engine pushing the carriages before it. When we reached the summit the line curved round, and we saw at one sweep the full extent of the Lithgow Valley, with the three tiers of long white viaducts rising one above the other, and filling up the whole side of the ravine. We went next to the sea-port of Wollongong, by way of coach from Campbelltown. The last few miles led over the Bulli Mountains, a range running along the coast a short distance in from the sea. The vegetation and scenery were alike grand. There were palms, prickly cactuses, tamarinds, and tropical plants of many kinds. Large fern-trees grew superbly, filling up secluded gullies with their wide-spreading ornamental fronds. From out the density of gum trees and pines rose tall, tapering cabbage palms, their long, thin, branchless trunks surmounted by a round clump of foliage. At two or three openings in the road we had a superb view of the coast, with all its many windings, rocks, and points of land. Wollongong was faintly seen far below, amid a country variegated with cultivation and coal-pits. This district is eminently carboniferous. The Bulli coal-mines are famous, or at least have colonial importance. Descending the range, we passed through the village of Bulli, along a road covered with " slack " or coal refuse. Right glad were we to leave these drifts of coal dust, and ap- proach Wollongong. Not that there was anything very cheerful about this sea-port. It is a decaying place. A man told me that he had seen no difference in it for sixteen years, save the addition of a court-house, a jail, and the abode of a solicitor. It breathes of irregular communication, and is in all respects i 130 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. sluggish. There are many shops and houses, but many shops and houses are shut up. It is a town village, and everyone knows everybody else. Every street looks like a side street the houses are old and dusty? There are two newspapers published fitfully through the week. Opposite the town, on the sea-shore, extends a long sandy knoll blown up by the wind. It has encroached upon a graveyard near by, and the headstones peep out through the heavy deposits of sand. We sailed to Sydney one afternoon in the small steamboat that trades up and down the coast. The wharf was completely blocked up with butter-carts. Coal and butter are the two great interests of Wollongong. In addition to the country vehicles, the wharf was filled with boxes and parcels pens of pigs, calves, and cows wicker-cages of fowls, and rows of butter-kegs. Six horses were put on the steamboat then hampers of hens were stacked up on deck then a number of fierce bulls were with great difficulty got on board and lastly, a mob of pigs were driven on pell mell. We sailed in a disagree- able tumbling sea, with a strong head wind. The pigs seethed about, and filled all the crevices of the ship the horses struggled and jammed their heads through the openings in the high structure of wicker-cages the hens cackled, fluttered, and sent their feathers flying thickly aft the bulls glared, plunged, reared, and butted at the bulwarks, all the while treading down the pigs, who uttered piercing shrieks, and spluttered along the sloppy deck. The smell from the scores of cages, the odour of the pigs, the hot air from the boiler, the steamy breath from the engines, the smoke coming straight astern, the fetid oil vapours, the pitching and rolling of the little steamer com- bined to lay every one prostrate with sickness. The sun went down, and we pushed ahead in the darkness. After a dreary interval the light of Port Jackson appeared, and soon we were abreast the entrance. Through the high, black, majestic heads the vessel steamed, borne in as it were on some mighty swell, and in a few minutes we were into the placid harbour. CHAPTER X. A TRIP THROUGH TASMANIA HOBART TOWN THE 'TALE OF A CONVICT LAUNCESTON. WE sailed from Sydney for Tasmania. We were three days on the passage to Hobart Town, for which we paid six guineas a head. The steamboat was full of passengers, most of them going to recruit themselves from the enervating heat of New South Wales, Tasmania being the chief resort of people from the vast neighbouring continent. This lovely island is the favourite sanatorium of the colonies, and in climate and situation stands the same to Australia that the Isle of Wight does to England. We sighted the shores of Tasmania passed a grand line of basaltic cliffs washed into quaint pillars by the sea and in a short time had sighted Hobart Town. Bright green hills, squared into orchards, and fields, and gardens filled with flowers, stretched up on either hand the city appearing in front of us, surrounded by delicately-swelling ground, and backed by the massive proportions of Mount Wellington, 4166 feet high. On arriving at the wharf we encountered quite a plague of flies, or rather fly-drivers, and were conveyed to the hotel in a kind of two-wheeled omnibus. Tasmania is a little smaller than Ireland, and has a population of 100,000. The old name of Van Dieman's Land, having an offensive sound, has been changed to Tasmania, in honour of its Dutch discoverer, Tasman the country, by this act, symbolising the purging away of all unpleasant associations. In 1852 the settlers rose and declared that Tasmania should receive convicts from England no longer, and in due time the system was abolished. Tasmania boasts two cities Launceston in the extreme north, and Hobart Town in the extreme south. There are really no other towns, the rest of the island lying between these two points being studded by a number of pleasant villages. Hobart Town is the capital, with a population of 20,000, and is prettily situated on the Derwent, just where 132 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. that clear, beautiful river expands into a handsome bay. It is an old substantial city, being in these two respects greatly unlike the majority of colonial towns. In fact, you scarcely ever imagine yourself at the Antipodes, the appearance of the town is so English. Most of the buildings are of sandstone, which is very plentiful in the vicinity. A number of the houses are very antiquated, with staring white-washed stone fronts, innocent of such luxuries as verandahs or balconies, and looking as if, in the convict times of long ago, people had been infected with a desire to make their houses resemble prisons. These mark one era of the town's history, the other and modern being represented by the many graceful buildings that everywhere meet the eye. There is an excellent town hall, one or two fine churches, several jam-factories and other industries, a large orphan asylum, and two benevolent institu- tions, the last-named sheltering between them five hundred old men. The number of old men to be seen in Hobart Town and throughout the island is something extraordinary. Among the parks and reserves is the Domain, near to which is the Governor's residence, and in the grounds of which we saw convicts at work not those of English growth, but Tasmanian ; while here also we noticed a fine statue of Sir John Franklin, once Governor of the island. As background to the town, rises, as we have seen, the bulwark of Mount Wellington. Every tourist feels himself called upon to climb this Alp of Hobart Town, and obtain the far-reaching prospect of sea and shore to be had from the top of it. Time did not permit of our indulging in and choking over a sponge-cake. The competitors for the races assembled. The herald of the course was the town-crier, dressed in scarlet coat, who, after tooting on a trumpet, came round, bawling " 'Pettitors ! prepare to henter the harenar make ready for the final 'eat ! " The utter Cockney abandonment of the sentence, coming in the midst of intense Scotch dialect, was ludicrous in the extreme. The band in the centre of the grounds played " God save the Queen " as the Governor took his place in the grand stand. Foot races, reels, strathspeys, sword dances, gymnastics, tossing the caber, and putting the stone, followed in quick succession. Then came some exciting wrestling between a tall Maori and a squat Cornishman, the brown-skinned fellow winning nearly every bout. The people streamed round the ring, the showmen shouted, the air-gun popped, the roundabout whirled, the booths tottered with press of customers. The scene was one of great popular enjoyment. But after a while the sports came to an end. The Cockney trumpeter dropped his last H the Governor and lady drove off in their carriage the crowd began to tend steadily home- ward, and we left the grounds as the brass band burst out crashing with " Auld Lang Syne." Our concerts lasted five weeks in Dunedin, from Boxing-Day to Burns' Birth-Day, 1873-4 a long time, considering the size of the town. But one peculiarity of the colonies is,' that new entertainments run longer than they would in an equal popula- tion in the old country. When we arrived, the only available hall was the Volunteer Drill Shed, a plain spacious building, which by means of calico and banners we made somewhat presentable. Then we moved to the Masonic Hall, a smaller but neater place. Eight months afterwards, on our farewell visit, we performed in a fine new Temperance Hall. Our entertainment, " Twa Hours at Hame," found great favour with the Dunedin folks, though it seemed like "taking coals to Newcastle" to bring Scottish sentiment and song and story into a community where the nationality was so pronounced. CHAPTER XIII. A TOUR THROUGH OTAGO TOKOMAIRIRO GABRIEL'S GULLY A CONCERT IN A BARN INVERCARGILL THE HIGH- LANDS OF OTAGO. WE spent six weeks in travelling through Otago. This necessitated coach and horses. Otago has not, as yet, con- tinuous railway communication. There are in the province 332 miles of railway authorised by Government, and now in course of construction, but at present one has to depend mainly on horseflesh for locomotion. Roads and railways are being pushed forward in all the provinces, and this rapid opening up of the country is the chief policy of the present New Zealand Government. Having contracted with a coach proprietor for the tour, there came to the hotel-door one Monday morning a red-bodied, yellow-wheeled coach with a staunch-looking team of four horses. The driver was a young man about 21 years of age short, whiskerless, a smoker. His name was Gideon, he said or, as some called him, Gid and others again. Giddy. It was one of Dunedin's worst days. The rain was blinding, and the wind boisterous. As the coach drove off, kind friends in waterproofs, whom we certainly thanked from the bottom of our hearts, waved their umbrellas and cheered us with pro- phesies of finer weather. Soon we were rolling along a smooth country road. Through the heavy driving rain, lit up by fitful sunshine, we saw that we were travelling through a beautiful country dark green hills, light green hills, yellow hills, distant purple hills and that the landscape was treeless, save where blue-gums, like rows of nine-pins, had been planted as shade-trees round houses. The Australian tree flourishes well in its new home, and Govern- ment encourages its introduction as a means of attracting rain, giving as a bonus two acres of land for every acre of gum-trees planted. We came upon several coal-mines, and passed through one or two tolls, the keepers of which seemed half inclined to An Of ago Township. 169 lose the money rather than risk coming out in such a rain. Arriv- ing at a wayside inn, we drew up and watered the horses, while our driver, in obedience to the iron law of custom, went in to spend a sixpence" swig a tanner," as he elegantly phrased it. We drove through the Taieri Plains, a fine agricultural country, which we had no sooner passed than the sky cleared. The wind blew fresh and bracing. We were in the highest spirits, and emerged from our husks of rugs and shawls. The driver whistled, and the horses had to be held in from a canter. The hill-slopes spotted with small " tussocks " or tufts of grass like miniature sheaves or " stocks " swept quickly past. Along the banks of the Taieri River past a small lake glittering in the sun down the Waihola Gorge and through the fertile Tokomairiro Plain, we reached by a long straight road the cheerful-looking township. We found that the hotel-man, who also owned the hall, had, in his zeal to procure a good audience, displayed a large banner in our honour, and covered the town- ship with small bills bearing the lucid intimation, " They are coming ! " Tokomairiro, or Milton, as the Government name goes, or Toko as it is termed for shortness, or Tok as I have heard it flippantly called, is perhaps the largest of the purely agricultural towns of Otago. To the eye it is one long street, though there has been an elaborate township laid off. The one-storey houses and shops, with which we had long been familiar in Australia, had here an air of freshness about them, due greatly to a free use of white paint. Though an exceedingly pros- perous town, we found it to be dull in appearance. We saw nobody at the street corner nobody near the bank no one at the Council Chambers no housewife shopping at the large general store. The grocer, with legs spread out across the threshold, filled up his doorway with his elbows. The draper was mechanically rolling and unrolling his cloth, selling and buy- ing to himself. The seedsman had more plants than patrons. The barber, hiding his hands behind his back as if they were contraband goods, not to be seized even in friendship, alternately surveyed the pavement and his projecting rainbow- coloured pole. A solitary rider left the echoes of horse- hoofs lingering about the street long after he had gone. One would think the townsfolks crept out and made purchases by stealth that they were forbidden under pains and penalties to shop before sunset. There is a newspaper here, the Brute Herald, named after 170 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. one of the two districts into which Otago is patriotically divided Bruce and Wallace ! Among the many other things of which Tokomairiro is proud are large flour mills, saw mills, a very extensive brewery, and as counterpoise, I suppose, a large cordial manufactory. A seam of lignite is worked within a mile of the town, and coals are extracted from the bowels of Mount Misery, a neighbouring height. Milton may be called an epic town, most of the streets being named after poets. There is an Ossian Street and a Shakspeare Street a Chaucer Street, a Spenser Street, and a Johnson Street a Pope Street, a Dryden Street, and a Burns Street. One cannot help regretting a capital chance which the laying-out committee has missed. There is a cone-shaped hill a little way out, which might have been called Parnassus. To be sure, it is easy to climb ! The view we had from the summit was grand. We thought it the climax of the picturesque in agriculture. A plain spread out before us, chequered with green, brown, and yellow squares corn fields, gardens, and meadows of English grass. In the heart of this lay Tokomairiro, while the landscape was framed in by hills that looked rugged and uneven, plunged as they seemed at places in deep shade, which we saw through a glass to be patches of very dark bush. We drove out with one or two friends to a bachelor's garden, some few miles from Milton, and were well rewarded for our visit. It had been given out to us that the garden was a great curiosity in its way, and we were not disappointed. An uncouth wilderness came to our view. We saw nothing but rank luxuriance. Gum trees were there, cabbage trees also, and flax plants in profusion native trees in great numbers, and the poisonous "toot " plant, a small shrub terribly destructive to sheep and cattle. The animals are passionately fond of it, devour it wholesale, and go into fatal convulsions. Pushing aside the rough scrub we discovered magnificent red, yellow, and green goose- berries white, black, and red currants plums, peaches, pears, and apples. Along a walk almost concealed by gras's, and through a maze of ferns, weeds, and tall bracken, we were taken by the bachelor himself, coming latterly to a small gully, where one of us was severely stung by falling upon a hidden beehive. In Australia we would have been frightened for snakes ! But it seems there is not a hurtful reptile in New Zealand not a snake, which fact was once satisfactorily explained by a learned Irishman " As all of yez know, New Zailand is the anti- podes of Ould Ireland ; so when St Patrick put his ban upon Gabriel's Gully. 171 snakes in the ould counthry,it went right through, bedad it did ! " In the gully were bushes of large luscious black currants, that hung in bunches like small grapes. Fruits, flowers, and vege- tables seem to acquire extra vitality in Otago. You see cabbages and cauliflowers with giant heads, and fuchsias growing to be considerable trees. Crossing the gully we came to a hothouse filled with vines, and facing a large flower garden. Here flar- ing bouquets, bunches of grapes, bags of apples, and large branches of currants, were thrust into our hands. Unitedly thanking our kind host, we drove off a moving horticultural show ! Next morning we were to start for Tuapeka. " It's past eight o'clock ! " cried Gideon the driver, laughing and squeezing his head through the partially-opened door of our bedroom "the horses have had their oats, and your own breakfast's a-waitin' ! " My brothers and I jumped up, hurriedly swallowed our breakfast, hauled out our luggage to the door, loaded the roof of the coach with portmanteaus, packed the rack, ballasted inside with bundles, filled the boot with a choice assortment of parcels, and heaped up shawls and greatcoats on the box. Gideon came round, leading the horses. " All right there ? in with them pole-straps, first hole woa ! quick, fasten up the trace that side back, steady, woa ! hand up the reins all aboard ! stand clear there hi, lads, hi ! Blossom, Jack, Nelly, Wall-eye, hi ! " Crack, jerk, jingle, and we were rattling down Tokomairiro's quiet street at fully eight miles an hour. Tuapeka, or Lawrence, the oldest gold-field in Otago, lies at the foot of Gabriel's Gully. It is fairly prosperous, and supported by the Blue Spur mining. When we were there, they were talking of building a new town hall at a cost of ^3000, and a school at ^1200. The present public school is regarded as small, though it has accommodation for fully sixty scholars. During a short visit we noticed that the pupils, in addition to other accomplishments, were taught shorthand writing. Education gets every attention in Otago. Dunedin possesses a fine University, where you are taught all the classics, and "ologies" without number also a High School and a Girl's Provincial School. Then there are public schools to be found all over the country whether it be in such flourishing towns as Invercargill, Queenstown, or Oamaru ; such prosper- ous places as Roslin, Teviot, Wallacetown, or Bannockburn ; or such model communities as Sawyer's Bay, Groper"s Flat, Limestone, Drybread,'One Tree Point, or Gummy's Bush. 172 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. There is here a large number of cleanly, well-dressed China- men. At night they walk about with their fashionably-attired English wives. At our concerts here they invariably occupied the very front of the front seats! There are 1883 Chinamen in Otago. Many of them are capital market-gardeners. We have seen no one but a Chinaman who could make a cabbage- garden picturesque. A number of places would be entirely destitute of vegetables but for the enterprise of these pagan gardeners. They have their weak points, like Europeans. Some of them, though quiet, are sly and dishonest. We heard here a tale reflecting seriously on the character of one " heathen Chinee." He had been in the habit of taking his gold to a certain gold buyer, who, on John's departure, always found the precious dust to weigh unaccountably lighter. So one day he was on the watch. The Chinaman came in and put his gold on the scales. " Welly good gold, welly good," said John, as the buyer bent over the counter to adjust the weights. Glancing quickly up, the broker saw the Chinaman, with dis- tended cheeks, blowing down silently upon the scale ! Smother- ing an exclamation, he vaulted over the counter, seized the flying rogue by the pig-tail, and tarred and feathered him before a large crowd of the townsfolk. In 1861, gold was found at Tuapeka. On 4th June of that year, Mr Gabriel Reed discovered auriferous ground in the famous gully now named after him. By the month of July 2000 diggers had assembled, and 600 tents had been erected. The excitement spread all over the colony. People even ceased clamouring for " news of the Maori war," and longed for " news from the Otago diggings." On the first of August the whole area of 51,000 acres at Tuapeka was declared a gold field. By September the miners numbered 4000, and the yield per week reached 10,000 oz. Being winter, the roads to Tuapeka were almost impassable. Twenty bullocks were required to haul 12 cwt Many people lost their way on the ranges out from Dunedin, and after suffering severely from frost and snow, were compelled to return. It was an eventful season to thousands. Of course we went to see the famous spot. The gully, hemmed in by high hills, looked like a wide, half-dried-up river bed. Slate-coloured slimy streams ran in and out amongst islands of grey sludge and gravel. The whole floor of the gully seemed to have been torn up. A broad expanse of tailings and workings stretched across to the bases of the hills on either An Otago Highway. 173 side. Two miles up, the gully branched off to the left, and we saw before us, at the head of the ravine, up a long, gentle gradient, the operations at the Blue Spur a high, wide amphi- theatre of bare earth a great conglomeration of quarries, washed by artificial torrents that poured over the precipitous cuttings. Rocks stood out here, jagged peaks projected there, and cliffs yellow from recent blasts shone out on every hand. One large waterfall we saw making a descent of 170 feet. We went south forty miles to Balclutha. At a toll we were stopped by a portly, sunny-faced Scotch wife, who, finding we were Scotch also, thought it her bounden duty to ask for the " bawbees " in the broadest accent at her command. One of us, in a moment of inspiration, and popping his head out of the coach, gave it as his deliberate opinion that she was the handsomest wife he had seen between here and Dunedin. " My certie, that's true!" instantly exclaimed the good woman with a self-satisfied cast of her head " there's no mony like me on the road gude mornin' to ye ! " And away we went, with many a laugh at the unexpected answer, so different to the bashful denial we had confidently hoped for. The road was lined each side by sweet-smelling hawthorn hedges, which alternated with low sod-walls almost overgrown by dense gorse. These sod-fences are built in the wet season, the turf being cut from the roadside, and the trench thus formed increasing the apparent height of the wall. Sheep pastures, houses, stacks, and roadmakers' tents occasionally varied the monotony of the grassy heights and hollows. At one place an English labourer, evidently a new arrival, was breaking stones in a listless kind of way, as if clods were more in his line. He had on the usual English smock, which looked a badge of servitude in such a country as this ! We never saw another smock in the whole of New Zealand. Balclutha was a pleasingly irregular cluster of houses, cheer- ful-looking and picturesque under the bright enlivening sun. It was looped in by the River Molyneux, a noble tortuous stream. It pours into the sea 1,600,000 cubic feet of water per minute, sixteen times the volume of the Thames. It is 200 miles in length, and rises near Mount Aspiring, a conical peak 9049 feet high, and part of the mighty middle range that runs like a backbone through the whole of the South Island. Strange to say, the river is fuller and the water is colder in summer than in winter, owing to the melting of the snow upon the mountains. When we saw the Molyneux, a large portion of 1/4 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. the banks had been washed away by a flood, and the bed of the stream displayed a considerable amount of shingle. New Zealand rivers, with their rugged, torn channels, bear unmis- takable evidences of nature's rude, wild moods. Balclutha is the centre of a most prosperous agricultural district. In fact, the whole country from Dunedin to Bal- clutha, a distance of fifty-four miles, is one long settlement. One meets with strange characters in some of these country places. For instance, in the hotel at Tokomairiro (spoken of in Scotch circles as Toakey-mirey) our boots were brushed by a fishcurer, who had just come out from London, and who regretted his luck in not getting work so soon as he expected. We happened to ask what induced him to come out. " Oh," said he, " the ship did ! and I heard tell, too, as how the Otago folks were running mad after people at ten shillings a day and their board that's what did it, that is ! " We thought it a pity that, when affairs really have a bright, glowing aspect, people should persist in making them too rose-coloured. Otago could be a land of promise without being a paradise. At this same hotel the waiter was a banished Communist, who had fought in the streets of Paris, had been run through the leg by a bayonet, and had been exiled for ten years. He was a short, flaxen- moustached young man, with seemingly a wealth of politeness and gentleness. Unsuitable people sometimes emigrate. One day a man was mourning the lack of employment, but he turned out to be a glass-eye maker ! We went on to Popotunoa, passing through much the same scenery as before. Otago is a decidedly grassy country. It lies ready for the plough. There are no forests to fell, no stumps to root out. All the heavy timber lies up amongst the ranges, and bush only exists in very small light patches about the lower country. The only great trouble to the farmer is the burning out of the "tussocks." When destroyed, they leave small, black, seared roots. The grass seems as if it had curdled into these large tufts. Very often we found them close together, and we had to wade through them up to the waist, sometimes up to the shoulders. The grass is luxuriant and speckled with tiny seedlets. When we grasped a handful of it, there was a feathery ornamental plume which would not have been out of place in any drawing-room vase. Otago, in its scenery, resembled the old country the bleaker parts like the north of Scotland. Coming to details, however, the grass is not English grass the solitary clumps of bush are A Concert in a Barn. 175 not groups of English trees the ever-present flax plant you never see at home. This flax plant, or Phormium tcnax as botanists term it, or Harakeke as the Maoris call it, is a wonderful plant. It is a clump of green, drooping, sword- shaped leaves, out of the centre of which springs a long flower stalk. It grows from seven and eight feet to ten and twelve feet high, while the stalk shoots very often to the height of sixteen and twenty feet. It is to be seen everywhere on moist, dry, high, and low ground but flourishes best near swamps and rivers. We saw it on the hill-side, the river-side, the road-side, and growing in large fields on marshy ground. The flax is exceedingly useful to the Maoris in the North Island. The pink blossoms that grow on the stalk contain honey the roots of the blades exude a liquid gum the pith of the stalk burns like tinder the leaf is note-paper to the natives, who write on it with a sharp shell. Tied in strips, it serves as ropes plaited it makes excellent mats dyed and woven, it forms fine garments for the Maori. The flax is also of great service to the settlers in the south. We have seen bundles tied up with it, whip thongs made of it, horses' bridles made of it, horses tethered with it, and fences filled in most elegantly with the blades fixed in upright strips. But though an article of great commercial value, the flax grew as mono- tonous to the eye as gum-trees in a long Australian bush-ride. Popotunoa at this time was peopled only by a post-master, a blacksmith, a bricklayer, a butcher, a baker, two carpenters, and a hotel-keeper. The post-office had only recently been opened, and the post-master was talked of as being rather amateurish, and not quite in his place yet. Just imagine a locality where a resident could come up to us, gleefully rubbing his hands, and tell us that he did not bake his own bread now, for to his great joy a baker had just opened shop in town ! We had here the good fortune to be the guests of the Rev. Mr Connor, formerly missionary to the Potterrow, Edinburgh, in connection with Nicolson Street U. P. Church. We were kindly entertained at the manse. The worthy clergyman remarked, in conversation, that his work was arduous but very encouraging, and only regretted that more young clergymen did not come out to this interesting field of labour. We had the honour of giving the first concert ever held in Popotunoa. The receipts went to help a young kirk. The " hall " was the barn of a neighbouring sheep-station. The seats were planks laid upon bags of grain, and an open loft, 176 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. filled with sacks of chaff, served as gallery. On the platform, which was a few boards covered with carpet, stood a table with a globe-lamp, and on our small travelling-piano bloomed a neat bouquet of flowers. The audience soon assembled. We saw the folks coming across the moorland, through the long grass men, women, lads, lasses, mothers, children, shepherds, servants, and people on horseback. Every few moments we heard the far- off thud of hoofs then a head would appear over the brow of a gentle declivity, and a man would dash up hurriedly to the door, with a sweating, hard-breathing horse. Every shepherd brought his " collie " with him, so that the barn swarmed with dogs. The horses were hitched-up to railings, posts, and the wheels of drays. The barn was not very brilliantly lighted. Chandeliers were made of crossed pieces of wood, each with two holes, into which candles were placed. Perforated battens jutted out from the walls. At one end of the platform was a shaky door, leading to the shed which did duty as " side-room." In this door was a hole, apparently for the ingress and egress of cats, and it so chanced that during " The Land o' the Leal " a poor dog jammed his head into the aperture. The melancholy howl that followed effectually banished sentiment. Then ensued fresh horror. The wooden chandeliers did not happen to be at all straight, and there was a strong draught, so the grease came dropping down. Icicles of grease hung on the walls stearine stalactites drooped from the candelabra. The lights guttered out one by one, till nothing was left but the dim globe-lamp. By ten o'clock the concert had concluded. When the audience went outside they found that the horses, alarmed either at the singing or the applause, had stampeded, and that a number were missing. Walking back in the gloom we were suddenly met by a party of riders, who had been on the search for the animals. " There's nine of them gone," said a man in a big flapping cloak -" clean gone, and into the ranges, I'll bet." We were really sorry for those poor fellows. The black sky the moonbeams striking through the rents in the clouds, and sweeping round like so many aerial bull's-eyes the strange shadows on the hills the sound of the wind as it rustled the high grass the sight of the dark range far away, where the horses were supposed to have strayed increased our sympathy. Nothing ever impressed us with such a sense of hopeless search as this night-ride of those men. After plunging through some half-mile of tussocks and climbing six or seven fences, we reached the Manse, and next morning had the satisfaction of Invercargill. 1 77 knowing that most of the horses had quietly cantered home to their respective stables. We drove on to Mataura, passing through bleak grassy up- lands. This was a place so small that the impetus of the coach almost took us past the township ! We sang here in the public hall, which is used as a court-house, a concert-room, a school-room, a church, and an assembly room for dancing. Even in this small hamlet, we had an audience of a hundred people. As we went from this place towards Invercargill we saw faint pencillings on the far horizon the mountains of Otago. The road had a singularly anomalous appearance. On our left were fields of corn, protected by quickset hedges on our right, rough tussocky country, enclosed by open fences. On one side, young English grasses, bordered by Australian gum-trees (successful immigrants from a sunny land) on another, hoards of wild Scotch thistles invading the soil, and pushing their purple heads between the tough, green, broad- spreading leaves of the New Zealand flax-plant. Well did the national emblem symbolise the energy and colonising spirit of the national character ! Invercargill is a thriving town, in the midst of farming. Its streets are named after Scottish rivers the Esk, the Dee, the Teviot, the Tay, the Forth, and several others. It is the chief town of Southland. This is now a small district, but in 1861 it said to Otago, " I would like to live separately I wish to be an independent province I want to manage my own affairs." And Otago said, " Very well, go ! " So Southland went, and made a nine years' unsuccessful attempt to live on its own resources. But the little province turned bankrupt, and in 1870 came once more under the parent wing. Invercargill, though shorn of metropolitan honours, has been more pros- perous since then. Our concerts were held in the Exchange Hall, which, like most of the buildings in town, was composed of wood and iron. It was formerly a church in St Kilda, near Melbourne, and the cost of shipping it to New Zealand amounted to ^1000. Invercargill has a railway twenty miles long, which runs down to the " Bluff," the port of Otago first touched at by the steamers from Melbourne. The stations are mostly sawmills and side tramways of sawmills, for Southland has 300,000 acres of forest, and does a good trade in timber. The railway to the Bluff, in its early days, had many features in common with the " Innocent Railway " that used to run between Edin- M 178 Kennedy's Colonial Travel. burgh and Dalkeith. On board any of the steamers, if you unfortunately start the subject of railways, a commercial traveller will inevitably, and with a premonitory chuckle, tell you a certain " comical old yarn about the Bluff Railway," which narrative is, nine times out of ten, the same that you heard from a chuckling commercial on your last steamboat trip, and which you will assuredly be bored with by another on your next. We heard, for instance, a story of how, in those good old times, a mob of cattle would frequently get in the way of the train. This caused great trouble to the driver, who used at first to sound the whistle, hop from the engine, and chase the obstruction off with billets of wood. This of course grew tiresome, and the driver at last carried a collie dog on the front of the locomotive. The sagacious animal sprang off whenever cattle appeared, barked them some hundreds of yards up the line, and then resumed its warm place over the buffers. One day an old woman was driving her cow along the railway track. The morning express came puffing up at fully seven miles an hour. The ancient dame, adjusting her spectacles, looked behind at the approaching engine, and thinking perhaps that danger was imminent, gave her beast an extra poke with her stick. On shambled the cow on jogged the old woman. " Get off the line ! " roared the engine-driver. But the good dame tucked up her dress and kept stumping along. At last the buffer of the engine quietly impinged upon the " bustle " of the old woman's dress, or rather where a " bustle " would have been had there existed any such thing as " bustle " either in train or dress in those slow-going days. The driver, shutting off steam and shutting his eyes to the impending catastrophe, shrieked " Hi ! Hi ! " while the old lady, dodging the buffer, uttered those ever-memorable words : " Man, ye're surely in an awfu' hurry this mornin' ! " So run the short and simple annals of the rail. On our way to Riverton from Invercargill we came upon a delicious patch of bush, consisting principally of kahikatea or white pine. The trees were tall and slim, their limbs high up on the trunks, and the boughs curving up like the branches of a chandelier. The timber in New Zealand is lighter and more ornamental than that of the Australian bush. In the under- growth there was great variety of vegetation fern and bracken bushes of all shapes and heights. A strange thing is, that if the undergrowth be destroyed the trees inevitably die away. The track went through this oasis like a stream bordered by an Out at " the Elbow. " 1 79 Avenue of trees ; and after travelling a mile, the rivulet of a road brought us sweeping out into the ocean of grass again, while the square black patch of bush faded away behind like an island as we traversed the plain. We crossed after a while several sandy knolls, over which frequently scampered glossy fat rabbits, and finished our journey along a wide, broad, curving beach. Two of our folks rode ahead of us, cantering through the surf, while we drove close behind them upon the wet firm sand, with the sea washing up through the wheels of the coach. We went next to Winton, another small township, where we got the use of the school-room by canvassing the majority of the inhabitants (who were on the school-board) and receiving their permission. From Winton we travelled up a long wide valley towards the " Elbow," named from a sudden turn of the Oreti River, and a divergence in the lie of the mountains. Every mile increased the beauty of the scenery. The slopes merged into hills the hills rose into heights the heights passed into imposing peaks. The mountains were striped with varie- gated hues blue, purple, yellow, and green all colours and shades of colours. Rain flew across the landscape travelling squalls, with oblique dark streaks traversing the whole sky behind us. We arrived at the Elbow Inn about three in the afternoon a wooden building standing on an open, low-grassed plain, at the entrance to the Highlands of Otago. The hills bounding the plain rose gradually till they reached the many- peaked, snow-covered summits of the greater chain of mountains. Inside the house we found a blazing log fire, which was regarded by the landlord as a great luxury, the wood having to be brought a distance of fourteen miles from the nearest clump of bush. The teamsters carry small braziers under their waggons. They cannot find wood everywhere, so they burn charcoal, and coal when they can get it. The Australian waggoner is far more favoured, as he travels almost continually amongst firewood. The landlord had been twelve years at the Elbow. " I came out," said he, " from the 'art of London." During the gold rush to Queenstown and the adjacent diggings, the hotel was in continual stir. " I made ^300 a week then," said the landlord, *' and in a smaller house than this. Three years ago I went back to London, but I didn't care for it at all everything was so changed I like this spot better, lonely though it be." We should have thought this impossible after the surge and whirl of the great metropolis. A Cockney hermit was to us an inexplicable being. 180 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. We left the Elbow before breakfast at seven next morning. We overtook one by one a number of carriers who had left the Elbow before us in the early morning. The big, old- English waggons, with their arched roofs of white canvas, their blue bodies, and their red wheels, could be seen for miles across the level country. The morning mist lifted leisurely from the mountains. Scarfs of vapour floated midway down the slopes. We never appeared to be so near the clouds before. One felt he could rend the mist by simply throwing a stone. On the higher peaks the clouds lay longer and heavier, but we watched them gradually dissolving in the sun, the white specks of snow twinkling through the thin edge of the mist, and latterly coming full into view. Some of the mountains, clothed in rich grass, had an air of grandeur and rudeness, mingled with ver- dure Highland form and height, with Lowland snug warmth. The lonely vastness of the landscape seemed to affect the feeling of perspective. Where there were no comparative objects, the mountains became knolls ; but when a solitary pill- box of a house rested at the base of one of these knolls, the knoll swelled into a mountain. We had breakfast at Athol, a small village. Then while the horses were having their oats we went across the road to have a talk with the blacksmith. This worthy possessed strong views on the land laws, had sledge-hammer opinions on squatters, talked of Athol farmers as being trodden under the iron heel of one man, worked him- self into a white heat over local mismanagement, and blew a whole bellowsful of wrath against the Provincial Council. We chimed in with him as far as our knowledge of colonial politics would allow, and had begun to feel interested in his clanging conversation, when Gideon was ready to start, and we had to say good-bye. We drove towards Kingstown, the township at the south end of Lake Wakatipu, or Wakatip as it is called for shortness. The road lay through continuous chains of mountains. Along \heir base ran strange terraces or mounds, supposed to be the banks of some ancient lake. Now and then these struck out across the valley from each side, and met near the middle, leaving only a small opening for us to go through like railway embankments with space for a stone bridge. Mountains rose round about us crags with jutting slaty rocks that caught boldly the slanting rays of the sun mountain slopes lined with watercourses converging into a central cavity, like the impress on top of a quartern loaf and hills with soft-swelling, graceful The Highlands of Otago. 181 slopes, whose harshness seemed to be concealed beneath the covering of grass, like the faintly-seen outlines of veiled sculp- ture. One chain was unspeakably grand, uplifting itself far above all around a sloping range vertebrated with peaks, a twin peak here, another there, then a large molar peak, then another double fang the range bursting into climax in the highest peak of all, weighted with a mass of snow. Passing half-a-dozen square white houses lying at the foot of a hill, like small ivory dice, with windows for spots, we reached the shores of Lake Wakatip. CHAPTER XIV. LAKE WAKATIP QUEENSTOWN THE GOLD-TOWNS OF OTAGO GORGE SCENERY NORTHERN OTAGO. OTAGO, like England, Scotland, and Ireland, has its well- defined lake district. There are a great number of lakes up here amongst the mountains, the more important being Lake Hawea, 48 square miles in extent; Lake Wanaka, 75; Wakatip, 112 ; and Te Anau, 132. Lake Wakatip is a great centre of attraction to travellers, but the tourist element is at present a mere drop of water in comparison to the stream of sight-seers that must in the course of time flood this picturesque district. Comparing the New Zealand lake with one of the finest of the Scottish lochs, we should say that Wakatip has two-thirds of grandeur and one of beauty Loch Lomond two-thirds of beauty and one of grandeur. The famous Highland loch has a quiet sylvan charm peculiarly its own, but the Otago lake is set in a more magnificent framework of mountains. The scenery of this region is regarded by some travellers as scarcely second in grandeur to the surroundings of the Swiss lakes. We sailed up Lake Wakatip from Kingstown to Queenstown, a distance of twenty-two miles, in a laughably small steamer. The pole of our coach had to project over the side like a studding-boom. The lake seemed about three miles wide a calm extent of water bounded by massive mountains that came abruptly down to the water's edge. These could not have been less than three thousand feet high, and all were of equal height, walling in the water on both hands. On one side, the ranges were in deep shadow on the other, flooded with sunshine producing a startling contrast. By-and-by the shadows of the mountains, which had previously lain concealed upon the lake, crept stealthily up the sunny shore, quietly scaling up and gradually taking possession of the heights. Close to the summit of the range, the aggrandising shadows were met by a bright red glow, the rearguard of the retreating sun, which seemed to linger and struggle for the small vantage-ground till Lake Wakatip. 183 forced off by the overwhelming darkness that settled on the hills. "We had tea served by the attentive captain on deck ; for the saloon could only have contained three persons, and we were seven people inclined to be sociable. First, the captain came struggling up with a large tin tea-pot holding two quarts. Then he recollected a knife was wanted, and down he clattered for that. Then he remembered the butter then the tea-spoons then the milk. Then cups were wanted, and he hastily rushed up with an armful of strong jugs. Last of all, he came up puffing with a huge calico bag of sugar, telling us breathlessly to help ourselves. " And let us all be thankful for what we have," said he " there's some poor fellows on shore here who don't get their meals quite so regularly as we do." As he spoke, the steamer headed towards a point of land, behind which rose a column of blue smoke. This was a signal from those on shore, for there were men here, working in the bush, whose only communication with the outer world was by the boat. As we steamed on, there appeared a hut, and near it a large fire, which glared in the fading daylight. On an extreme pinnacle of rock stood a man in a rough blue coat, and cord trousers, tied round by a string at the knees. A boat went off from the steamer with a well-stocked canvas bag of provisions. When the craft touched the shingle, the man caught hold of the sack, waved a hurried good-bye, and scrambled up the rocks. This scene was backed, or rather looked down upon, by a most stupendous piece of scenery a mountain of cliffs, one piled above another mighty blocks of rock, cemented together with bush and brushwood, and towering in blackness to the giddy height of five thousand feet. This awe-- inspiring sheer headland is one of the principal sights of Lake Wakatip. The scenery was on so large a scale that we ap- peared to be standing still. Night settled down, and the stars shone overhead. The last place we touched at was a gloomy little bay. Here we were to take in a number of pigs, owned by two Chinamen on board, who were going up to hold their great New Year Jubilee at Queen stown. The boat was long in returning the darkness thickened time was pressing. " Hurry up with them grunters!" roared the captain. "All right!" exclaimed a voice on shore, "we're hard at work catchin' 'em!" Then followed a period of discord soprano shrieks, counter- tenor screams, bass grunts, accompanied by an ear-rending chorus this porcine part-music occupying about twenty 184 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. minutes, at the end of which a boat-load of pigs came alongside. The two Chinamen seemed to regard the shrieks as sweetest melody, and stroked the pigs fondly, as they were one by one deposited on deck. We reached Queenstown, which lay in a sombre basin of mountains, and appeared a cheerful community of street-lamps. Upon landing we were assailed by a score of lanterns, one lantern quarrelling with another over our effects, and a good-natured bull's-eye conducting us to the hotel, where we were ushered to our rooms by a civil and obliging candle. Next morning was as sunny and cloudless as we could possibly have wished for. Opening the glass doors of the parlour, we stepped out on the balcony and beheld a view of striking beauty. Queenstown, half a mining, half a pleasure town, is sheltered by magnificent scenery. On one side are the " Remarkables," the double peaks of a precipitous range rising 7688 feet, flecked with snow, and looking cold and distant, soaring as it were through rarefied air a wall of granite scarred by torrents of melted snow in form like some vast wrinkled iceberg drifted from lonely polar seas. All around are giants of 6000, 7000, and 8000 feet, while the head of the lake is crowned with the glaciers of Mount Earnslaw, 9200 feet high. The various moods of the lake this day were wonderful. At first there was absolute stillness, and so perfect was the reflection that the eye could scarce detect the rim of the beach. Bush, house, sail, boat, and mountain-side were all in perfect dupli- cate. A wedge of sky, that came down between the meeting spurs of the mountains, was reproduced as an outspread fan of light in the clear lake. Then a storm burst with massive clouds, high wind, and curling waves. Towards evening the scene was superb, for the setting sun filled the sky with crimson, shed a mellow pink hue upon the mountains, and transformed Lake Wakatip into a vermilion sea. Then at night, as the sky cleared, the stars shone bright on the lake like trickling drops of light, and the ranges stood in dark shadowy masses against the star-lit sky, mere silhouettes of their former selves, while a red raging bush-fire blazed far across the lake, and, with the help of one or two straggling clouds, feebly imitated the sunset of a few hours before. Next day we ascended a spur of Ben Lomond a mountain overlooking the town. It was a steep climb. We had to haul ourselves up, hand over hand, by tufts of grass and bracken. Large boulders, imbedded in the hillside, had to be scrambled Climbing a Mountain. 185 over ; rocky crags had to be rounded or scaled at their easiest points. Long shoots of earth went sliding down behind us, frightening the lizards and stirring up countless sand-flies, that stung like mosquitoes. As fast as we mastered one slope, another provokingly rose above us, till after two hours' hard climbing we reached the summit. The sight that burst upon us fairly took away what little breath we had remaining. The mountains had risen as we ascended, disconnecting themselves with all lower hills. The blue lake was sprinkled with little swan's-down waves. Queenstown appeared below us, a cluster of microscopic houses peopled by black specks, with a white tortuous road winding behind it,'like a serpent about to enclose the town within its folds. Away to the left stretched a deep black gorge, gloomy, silent, and desolate, whose further extremity reached a faint silvery vision of snowy peaks ; and wandering through it was the lonely track that led to the gold- diggings in the ice-bound fastnesses of the Shotover River. The whole scene was indelibly photographed upon our minds. The descent of this Ben Lomond spur was the hardest work of all. It took us an hour to reach town, and we did not waste time either. We slid, tumbled, and sprawled botanized invol- untarily over ferns culled helplessly large bushes of bracken were scratched by prickly " Wild Irishman," and tortured by spike-leaved plants. Down we came, each of us riding on an avalanche of earth. Two or three times we stopped ourselves on the very edge of steep rocks, some thirteen feet high, which we had to descend, holding on by the grass that grew in the fissures. One of us, luckily at a small rock, could not stop himself in time, and clutched at a rotten bush, but it came away with him, and he shot over, gliding down in a halo of rubbish, somersaulting over some interlaced grass, and dis- appearing head foremost into a gully, where we could hear his voice dolefully amongst the ferns. We hauled him out, and found his scratches few and harmless. It is needless to say we followed no system in coming down. Every one shifted for himself, one very often beneath the other, which was sometimes dangerous. Once a loud cry came from my brother highest up, and a large slaty stone flew down, revolving on its sharp edge. My brother below, seeing it bounding directly towards him, rolled over and over to one side, lay flat, and covered his ears with his hands, till the stone crashed harmlessly past With such-like adventures we got to the bottom of this really precipitous mountain-side. 1 86 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. At Queenstown we started on our tour through the gold- towns which lie in the grand gorges of Otago. Driving to Arrowtown, we saw a solitary white spire crushed between half-a-dozen converging hill-spurs then, as if by magic, a long row of iron roofs sprouted out of the earth, the houses blossom- ing by degrees into sight, till a full-blown street, with squat shops, big signs, dirty back-yards, and chaotic mining, spread into view. Arrowtown lies in a wild spot, where high cliffs descend sheer to the Arrow River, bearing traces of many a "fresh." A rise in the river washes down auriferous deposits to Arrowtown the floods feed it with gold. Arriving at the hotel, we saw a cluster of men in the bar gazing rapturously at a large nugget which a lucky miner was holding in his hand. It weighed thirteen ounces, and was worth about ^40. The owner handed it to us, telling us to feel its weight, while we congratulated him on his good fortune, and wished him "many happy gold returns." The country back from Arrowtown is terribly rough and broken. Several diggings, however, flourish in this wild region. These are reached by pack-horses, which travel along small tracks across the mountains. In the old times the Arrowtown digging was long kept secret by three or four men. Persons, anxious to share in their luck, followed them as they came down every month for stores to the nearest township. Going back, they would be fallen in with, as if accidentally, by these trackers, who, uttering many protestations of good-will, would journey along in a friendly manner with the diggers. When night came they would camp and sleep together. In the morning the trackers, waking up, would find that the miners had dis- appeared in the darkness. Sometimes the trackers were decoyed along circuitous routes and were almost lost amongst the mountains. " Knowing " persons say there are two ways of discovering secret diggings. One is, to go up a high hill and look out for smoke ! A digger, be he ever so secure and secret, must light a fire some time or other, and the rising smoke betrays him. Another plan is, to watch the creeks. If the water be discoloured, there are persons up the creek wash- ing for gold. In some of these ways the Arrowtown gold field may have been discovered. Next we left for Cromwell, thirty-two miles distant. For twenty miles or so the road wound along one side of the pre- cipitous Kawarau Gorge, the first touch of real gorge scenery we had experienced. It was not altogether a time of pleasant- Gorge Scenery in Otago. 187 ness, for the road was without exception the dustiest we ever travelled. The horses sank over the fetlocks, the wheels went down to the axles, while we got out and walked with invisible feet. The dust, too, was as fine as the best flour, and when pressed between the fingers had not the slightest grit. The cutting that overhung the road was a mere dry-clay bank, gradually decaying into fresh supplies of dust. The road wound through the gorge at a height of three hundred feet, and at one place, the Arrow Bluff, four hundred feet above the dark-green Kawarau river, which seemed to be sluggishly moving far below, though in reality foaming along a rocky cliff-locked channel. We felt dizzy as we wheeled abruptly on our lofty course, the horses generally becoming obscured with dust at the most critical parts of the road. Rounding corners, we would abruptly come face to face with great shoulders of hills bulging hill slopes, with vast expanses that seemed to swell up before us, every foot of them apparently instinct with life, slowly sinking as we descended, gradually heightening as we rose, and sud- denly steadying themselves as we turned and drove straight towards them. The great depth, extreme ruggedness, wildness, and bold outlines of this gorge left us with grander ideas of New Zealand scenery. After a while we came down a long hill to the river, which we crossed on a kind of punt a broad plat- form or railed gangway floated on three boats, and fixed by a long chain to a stout iron cable stretched across from one steep bank to another. The helms of the three boats were connected together, and worked by one man. After the coach and horses were safely on the punt, the ferryman, seizing the rudder, turned the boats obliquely to the stream, and the current rushing against them at some six knots an hour, sent us quickly across the long chain that ran on pulleys along the cable keeping us from being swept down the river. This novel experience cost us one shilling per horse, two shillings the coach, and six- pence each passenger. Traces of mining now appeared. We saw, gleaming across the gorge, what looked in the distance a stout silver thread, but which on closer view turned out to be a piece of galvanised- iron tubing, 400 feet in length, conveying water to the workings across the river. Lastly, we noticed a number of baskets slung on ropes over the gorge, for the transit of miners from one side to another. We passed, during our drive, three mountain torrents of different characters, which the miners have .shown by calling them the Weeping Lizzie, the Roaring Meg, 1 88 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. and the Gentle Annie. You may miss seeing Lizzie or Annie, but you cannot escape Meg. She is a rumbling, raging, scolding stream, her utterance half-choked by stones and boulders, which change her steady flow of eloquence into loud, foaming incoherence. Leaving this long gorge, we travelled some few miles of a grassy plain, at the opposite side of which, close to the mouth of another gorge, lay Cromwell. This was the same kind of town as the " Arrow " a crude assemblage of houses and shops, with all the interests of the place centred in the gold washings on the banks of the river. Close to the town, you see the junction of the Molyneux and Kawarau Rivers. The Molyneux rushes out under a high white bridge, its pure green waters covered with seething froth while the Kawarau, turned to a dirty yellow by the mining, joins it close by. The two rivers the green and the yellow flow side by side in two distinct currents for a long distance, but join at last in one bemuddled stream. In this wedding of rivers one of them "changes its name" the Kawarau becomes the Molyneux. To reach the next town, Clyde, we had to travel through the Cromwell Gorge, which was as wild and striking as the Kawarau. At a steep " pinch " or hill, my father got out and walked ahead of the coach. Turning a corner, he was lost to sight. He was met by a man on horseback, who said " Good morning " to him in an astonished tone, and then added, "Excuse me, but really it is so strange, so very unusual to see a respectable person like you walking very strange indeed ! " But when the coach came wheeling into sight, the stranger's face brightened, and he rode off quite relieved ! Clyde is just like Cromwell. Here the miners are not satisfied with overhauling the steep banks of the Molyneux. They have got a large dredge, which scoops up the dirt from the bottom of the channel and washes it on board. Also a " pneumatic boat," on the principle of the diving-bell, in which the miners descend to the bed of the river. We had a talk with the town-clerk here, who was in the thick of census-taking, and was on the point of starting on one of his numerous journeys. He had to go into the queerest and remotest of places, following the various abodes of the miners. " To-day," said he, " I intend to visit one family only ; then it will take me two days to reach the next family, just a quarter of a mile off as the crow flies, they're so separated by creeks and mountains." Census-taking is no enviable task here through gorges instead of streets, and up hills instead of stairs ! A New Scottish Time. 189 Harvesting was in full swing between Clyde and Black's, our next stopping-place. At one farm, owned by a company, there were sixteen reaping-machines, worked by over 200 men. The property consisted of fully 2 500 acres, mostly under wheat, and 45 bushels per acre was looked upon as certain. They do things on a large scale here. The Windsor Park estate, further north, owned by one man, had 2000 acres under grain, and the yield was expected to be upwards of 50,000 bushels of wheat, 12,000 bushels of oats, and 8000 bushels of barley. Some of the wheat, excellent in quality, was averaging 50 bushels to the acre. " Black's No. i " was a wretched diminutive place of nine wooden houses, with an aristocracy composed of the bank agent and the local doctor. It was pitted all about with holes. These frequently form the grave of some unfortunate " hatter," as a man who works alone and has all his property " under his hat " is called. The earth very often " caves in " on the solitary digger he is crushed to death and the folks think he has left for some other place, till one day another " prospector " unearths a pick and a skeleton. Chinamen still scrape away here on a small scale. They form a large proportion of the inhabitants. They appeared to us to be all pretty well off, jolly looking in the extreme, and not sickly like most Chinamen. As the local doctor told us, with some slight air of disgust, they are very healthy indeed, and when taken ill, consult their own "medicine man," to the exclusion of all other practi- tioners ! We went next to Naseby, which lies in a sheltered vale near Mount Ida ; thence to Palmerston, a farming town charmingly situated; then to Moeraki, noted for its spherical boulders, washed completely round by the sea. On the way to Otepopo we were overtaken by a man on a scrubby red horse. He had a fiddle by his side, and told us he had been out playing at a country dance the previous night. " Yes," said he, " I'm the boy for the Scotch reels ay, an' I like a' kinds o' Scotch music ; eh, man, my twa favourite Scotch tunes are Auld Robin Gray an' the Auld Hunder ! " and with his old fiddle slung behind him like the harp of the Minstrel Boy, he put spurs to his shaggy steed and disappeared over a hill. We passed the village of Hampden, where harvest had put an end to education, the schoolmaster having gone off to help his brother to get in his crop. Then the following day saw us arriving at Oamaru, a sea- port seventy-five miles north of Dunedin, and the chief town of 190 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. Northern Otago. It is known through the colonies by its peculiar white stone, which is much used for building purposes. Oamaru is backed by the greatest wheat-growing district in New Zealand. The town is finely built, and is situated on an open roadstead. At the south side of the town an arm of land stretches out, with a headland at the end of it, to which they are at present building a long index-finger the new breakwater of Oamaru. It being an open roadstead, ships have to lie at anchor, and discharge their cargo by means of surf-boats. At one time we saw a schooner unloading in the roads. A long cable stretched from the vessel, and on this a surf-boat was threaded like a shuttle, the crew hauling them- selves backward and forward. There was a great swell on, and the boat pitched fearfully, one time completely out of sight, the next standing high against the horizon. The men were clad in oil-skins, as the spray flew in clouds. With a loud rasp the boat touched the beach. Thirteen shore-men splashed over the knees into the water, alongside the boat, which was filled with sacks of coal. With great difficulty the men secured their loads, for the swell rose over their waists and almost carried the fellows off their feet. There is a fine Mechanics' Institute, with a great variety of papers. Picking up the New York Herald, I found underneath it the Northern Ensign of Wick ! These institutes are a great blessing in Australia and New Zealand. Every month fresh literary blood is infused into the community, and on the arrival of the Home Mail, people crowd the reading-room to see the latest magazines and newspapers. The weather was exceed- ingly pleasant. This was the end of February that is, to- wards the close of summer. Spring in Otago commences on the 23d of September, summer on the 2ist of December, autumn on the 2oth of March, and winter on the 2ist of June. We had in Oamaru all the bright blue sky of Australia, with the brisk freshness that generally characterises Otago weather. The census-taker arrived one day at the hotel. The printed form was very exhaustive, for there were regulations as to Maoris and half-castes, as to Chinamen and their wives, as to religious sects, as to education, as to sickness and infirmity, and other interesting matters. We were greatly amused on reading the schedule to see that one lodger in the hotel had put down his religious denomination as that of " boiler-maker," and that he was suffering from the infirmity of the "Free Church of Scotland ! " CHAPTER XV. PERILOUS FORDING OF THE WAITAKI CROSSING THE CANTER- BURY PLAINS THE CITY OF CHRISTCHURCH PORT LYTTELTON. "THE Waitaki is up ! " was the news we received in Oamaru. We had to cross this river on our journey northward into the province of Canterbury. Word came that it was barely fordable, a hot wind having melted the snows on the Ranges, and swollen the mountain torrents. This river, one of the most important in the colony, is 120 miles long, and has its source in the Southern Alps, not far from Mount Cook, which is 13,000 feet high, and the monarch of New Zealand mountains. The first forty miles of the Waitaki lie through a deep gorge hemmed in by barren, perpetually snow-covered, precipitous mountains after which the river flows in a commonplace manner through the Plains towards the sea. This Waitaki is also the boundary-line between Scotch Otago and English Canterbury, so that " Both sides of the Waitaki " may in the course of time come to be as suggestive a phrase as " Baith sides o' the Tweed." A drive of fourteen miles brought us to the river. What ! this the Waitaki? this the famed, the terrible Waitaki? im- possible ! Half-a-dozen small streams appeared to be pouring past us, covering a large extent of ground, so intersected was the channel by shallows and long shingly spits. This was one of those New Zealand rivers that are never full-flowing save during a heavy " fresh," and whose banks are simply flood- marks. We waited here three hours, watching through a glass one or two houses on the opposite shore, about a mile off, the Waitaki all the time growing more important in our eyes. At length a boat approached. The head ferryman, who was trying to discover a ford for the coach, came slowly across on horseback. He was a Norwegian named Muller a big-built giant of a man, with a long red beard, flannel shirt, and tweed trousers. By his orders the luggage was taken out of the coach and put into 192 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. the boat. Then, after my father, mother, and my two sisters had taken their places, one of the men waded up to his knees and shoved off the boat to the edge of a " terrace," where it was caught by the rush of the deeper stream. It floated round the end of a spit, was hauled by the men along some shallow water, guided over a rapid current, dragged over another bed of shingle, and rowed across a second broad channel to the opposite shore. The coach was not equally fortunate. Our driver, though sustained greatly by a dram he had taken at a cottage, was almost on the point of relinquishing the ford. Gideon was in great terror of water, for a brother of his had been drowned whilst crossing an Otago river. Had it not been that two of us went on the box as company, he would assuredly have thrown up the reins. It was certainly far from pleasant to see the grey current rolling past us at six knots an hour, and know that next minute we were to trust ourselves to its uncertain depths. The danger magnified every moment, though we had not long to think, for the Norwegian, riding into the river, called on us to follow. He was mounted on a bare-backed white horse, so as to be ready any moment for a swim. Gideon cracked his whip, and we splashed in, the rear being brought up by my two brothers on the saddle-horses. The stream" widened out as we proceeded, while the water tore noisily through the wheels. A bank of shingle was reached. Then our guide took us some two hundred yards in an oblique direction down stream, which was the cause of a strange illusion ; for the swifter speed of the current, combined with the grating of the wheels on the rough channel, made us appear to be going at a considerable speed backwards. We came to another branch of the river, and progressed cautiously. Plump ! the leaders sank over their knees ; splash ! the wheelers swayed for a foothold, while their tails flowed on top of the stream ; bump ! the coach went down over the axles. Farther in the pole disappeared then the horses' legs then the front wheels. The coach gave a severe pitch, and a substantial wave came over the box-seat, wetting two of us considerably, while Gideon threw his legs up in the air and thus escaped a ducking. The two on horseback had a bad time of it keeping their horses' heads up-stream. My brother, who rode a little black pony, was every moment expecting to be carried away ; but he got at last under the lee of the large horse, and felt safer. Mu'ller A Perilous Ford. 193 tied a rope to the leading horses, to guide us round some awkward places a proceeding which kept us continually on the alert ; for once or twice he turned us sharply on the " lock " of the coach, and we felt the vehicle lifting for an overturn in the river, which, of course, made us gesticulate wildly, and cry out loudly to the ferryman. Another shingle-spit was gained, and Muller again peered about for a ford, but the bottom was lost a few feet from the edge. We drove in at random, the Norwegian keeping close alongside our leading horses. All at once his white horse sank to the belly, and in a second the coach had crashed down to an equal depth. It was a most awing sight to see the solid mass of water moving past us not foaming, but gliding swiftly, with every indication of a treacherous foothold. We had gone but a few yards farther when Mllller suddenly threw up the leading-rope into the air, flung his hand back warningly, and sank with an ominous plunge, almost at our feet, into an unknown depth of water. Horse and rider were swept before our terrified gaze away down the river. Clutching the bridle firmly in his left hand, the ferryman made a lunge with his right, caught the mane, and held grimly on, while the horse swam strongly and brought him at last to a small point of land. The coach was left standing on the brink of a hidden terrace, with the current rushing round us. We trembled for the slightest movement of the horses, but luckily they stood like sta- tues, despite the water surging up violently against their sides. Milller made his appearance again, all dripping but hopeful, and got us out of our predicament by a sharp turn of the coach telling us afterwards, in proof of the shifting nature of the channel, that he had crossed easily, at this very place, only the day before. When we arrived on the shore we found an hour had been occupied in fording, an experience that cost us thirty shillings. The Norwegian, who treated the whole affair very coolly, told us he had been ten years at this ferry, had been swept off that same old white horse many and many a time, and had frequently to swim for his life. We would advise no one with weak nerves to ford a swollen river in New Zealand. A short time after, a number of passengers were fording this same Waitaki, when their coach upset, and a " female magician " was drowned. We afterwards saw, in theChristchurch cemetery, many graves of persons who had perished while crossing rivers. The inscriptions, which came home to us in all their force, included such texts as " A horse is counted but a vain thing to save a man." N 1 94 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. Our perilous fording of this dividing stream was succeeded by a journey of twelve miles along native-grassed plains, taken up by sheep-stations. There are some large " runs " in this part of the country. A story is told of a squatter who, in a towering passion, ordered one of his men to leave " Away ; off at once !" cried he ; "get off my run this minute! " " What !" exclaimed the object of his wrath, calmly pulling out a watch " this minute ! Why, I couldn't do it if I were to rush at a break-neck pace for three hours on end!" We reached Waimate, our first experience of a Canterbury township. The general taste seemed to lie in the direction of neat cottages, painted a light salmon-colour, and outlined in brown. The by-streets were pleasantly laid out with hedges. It was a cosy, fat little country town. Next day we travelled to Timaru, which lies, like Oamaru, on a roadstead. Here we said good-bye to our genial driver Gideon. We subsequently learnt that he made something handsome out of his return journey to Dunedin, as he picked up a batch of Chinamen on the road and brought them into town or rather to the outskirts ; for, as he said, " I wasn't a-going to be seen drivin' home with a lot o' Chinee diggers ! " We prosecuted our journey to Christchurch by Cobb's coach. The coach was long, red, and dingy, with a railed roof, seats fore and aft, a door at the back, a foot-board curved up in front like the bows of a ship, and an enormous "boot." A farmer sat on the box, and conversed with the driver, who spoke with the side of his head and listened with his nose, which he occasionally jerked full into the other's face. Inside the coach sat a young lady, barnacled over with bundles. The other passenger was an elderly gentleman with a red face and grey moustache to all appearance a Crimean officer who was called "the Doctor" by everybody we met. On we jogged with a leisurely trot-trot, for the driver apparently thought he had to tumble over a thousand-feet precipice at the end of his journey, and was anxious to extend his life by slow driving. A few miles out we came to a public-house. The driver handed the reigns to the farmer, then slowly toiled into the bar. Three minutes elapsed. Out he came, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. " What'll you have, Jack ? " said he to the man on the box. " Oh, I don't know I'll try a shandigaff." The Crimean gentleman emerged from the coach. "And what'll you take, Doctor?" "Oh, a sherry '11 do me, thank you." After a while the driver and the doctor, followed by a foul-speeched swagman, returned from the bar. The Drinking- Customs. 195 driver goutily ascended to the box, rheumatically took the reins, serenely filled his pipe, nodded in a careless way to a friend at the door, and commenced an enthralling conversa- tion : " How do, George? What are you doing up here, eh? Left Simmons's, have you ? I saw your mate down at the ferry last week." "Oh, did you? Keeping all right yourself ? I see that old chesnut of yours is groggy." " No, it ain't no more shakey on the pins than you are." " Oh, don't tell me ! but just wait a bit, Jack, till I fetch a parcel ! Leave it at Smith's, will you, old man ? " The military doctor crawled into the coach, and the swagman, uttering fearful threats at some one in the public-house, reeled out, pitched his blankets inside the coach, and took his seat beside them. The mail was off once more. We passed by plantations of gum trees, rows of bright yellow stacks, corn fields hedged with gorse, green meadows, and a wide level plain far beyond the grey road extending away ahead, till the unclouded sky came down like a bright blue blade, and severed it at the horizon. In time we reached Temuka, where the same drinking programme was gone through. Drinking here is fostered by the appearance and number of the " hotels." "Hotel" sounds more respectable than "public- house." The bars are opener, more numerous, and less clandestine-looking than at home. Colonial Bill, when he beckons his chum Tom to have a "nobbier" over the way, is only increasing his long-established fame for good-fellowship. The digger, when he leaves his lonely gully and comes down to civilisation, has a " blow-out " with his friends so has the shepherd when he pockets his cheque for some months' work, and leaves for a while the solitude of a sheep-station. Con- viviality is the order of the day. No company of average men assembles, but some one " shouts " or " stands " drinks all round. Mr Black meets Mr White, whom he has not seen for a whole week, and the consequence is a couple of " drinks." Jones has something particular to say to Robinson about the weather they step " across the road." Smith settles an account with Brown, and two "nips of brandy" are immediately called for. "Nobblers" act in many cases as the receipt-stamps of business. It is only but fair, however, to state that, with all this, there is a marvellous freedom from staggering drunkenness. There is more of what we might call casual conviviality, but we will not say there is more intemperance in the colonies than in the mother-country. 196 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. We stayed two days at Temuka, and then caught the next coach, which left at eight in the morning. The " coach " break- fasted at Waihi ; but most of the passengers hung about amusing themselves. Two jolly old fellows, with white sun-shades round their hats, roamed into the " general store," and almost frightened the worthy lady that kept it one of them, a Scots- man, asking for a " pund o' her best watter buskits," and the other civilly requesting " five ounces of acid drops for a child six months old !" Occasionally the road, as a relief to its mototony, broke out into bright hedges, cheerful plantations of trees, pleasant- looking houses, salmon-coloured churches, and one-storey cottages. We crossed the Rangitata which, like most of the rivers that traverse these plains, was simply a bed of shingle on a bridge nearly a mile long. Then came a great sea of grass nothing to be seen on either side, before, behind, to the right, to the left nothing but a desert of yellow grass, with myriads of little white moths fluttering amongst the tussocks. The passengers in the front part of the coach all became extra- ordinarily happy, taking at frequent intervals a bottle out of a glazed black bag. The jolly company established a dog-watch, which meant that every dog met in with was to be the signal for a drink all round. The first seen was a boundary-dog, chained to a break in a fence, to prevent sheep straying from one run to another. It was a fierce, leaping, howling brute, with teeth like tusks, and with brown matted hair that shook and flapped in long ragged strips over its back and over its eyes. It was fastened to a high wooden kennel, and within the radius of its tether were red fleshy bones of sheep, a skull, and half-crunched ribs, which the dog dragged rattling around with its chain, as it wheeled and bounded furiously at the coach. Poor boundary- dogs, what a life they lead ! no society, no casual company, nothing but the sight of a coach every day to remind them of the outside world. Their existence is a blank, and they are said to bark at a passing shower even by way of variety ! Far from house and settlement, we saw a cart loaded with furniture chairs, tables, and chests of drawers a family moving, and the head of it driving his small stock of cattle before him. In the middle of the plains we drew up alongside a post, on which was nailed what looked like a small writing- desk. The driver leant out, lifted the lid, took out a small leather bag, and drove off. It was a bush post-office a very private letter-box, belonging to some sheep-station. Then the The Canterbury Plains. 197 horses, as if by mutual consent, took it into their heads to "bolt." With vigorous gallop they careered along the plain. The team was guided off the road, and the frantic animals swept round in an immense circle on the plain. All fear and anxiety gave place at last to curiosity. " How long would they keep it up ? " For nearly a quarter of an hour they dragged the coach round and round ; but at the end of that time they sobered down to a smart trot, and, all steaming and sweating, they were headed back to the road. A passenger was picked up an open-faced young Irishman. "Ach ! this country is no good," said he, " the best of the land 's all taken up, and you can't get work when you want it and little enough wages, too." Cross-examining him, we learned that he had been five weeks at harvesting, and was ^"25 in pocket. " Troth, that's a fact," said he ; "I cleared five pound a week. You see I'm one of those chaps that's always grumbling, and don't know when they're well off." Leaving Ashburton, where we had dinner, we passed paddocks of green grass, marshalled round in military fashion with sentinel poplars, outside of which bristled like bayonets the fixed blades of the flax. Eighteen miles more of the dull plains, and we had reached by dusk the railway at Rakaia. After a thirty miles' rush in the dark on a continuous dead level, we sighted the bright glow in the heavens of the Christchurch street-lamps. We were conveyed from the station in a real English cab. The driver was a stout old man, very garrulous, who, ere we had driven thirty yards, said he was a Herefordshire man, and had struggled long in the province. " I've 'ad my ups and downs," said he, " an' worked 'ard in my time, but " (giving his horse a crack of the whip) " I'm blowed if I ever 'ad such easy work as this ! " The cab turned into a quiet part of the town, consisting of detached houses, walled gardens, and numerous white gateways. Into one of the latter we turned, driving up a gravelled walk to a verandahed hotel, surrounded with trees. We were shown by the lady of the house to an airy parlour, where the waiters brought us the numbers pf our rooms. One by one we went upstairs. Candle in hand, I walked down a long passage, looking for No. 36. No. 7, No. 8, No. 9 10, n, 12 confound it! 17, 18, 19 no. 'appearance of 36 here ! Back again, and along Another corridor, with a narrow channel, dangerous to navigate from the numerous reefs of boots lying on either hand alas ! here was the end of the pas- sage 50, 51, 52. What was to be done ? As a last resource 198 Kennedy's Colonial Travel. I darted off to some rooms by themselves 70, 80, 81, no use ! Getting hold of the waiter, he exclaimed, as an idea seemed to flash on him " Oh ! I know where you've gone wrong ! open the door of No. 12 bed-room and that will show a long pas- sage go straight down that ! " Doing all this, I came to Nos. 23, 26, 30, 35 but no 36. Arriving at a small staircase, there at the bottom of it was the fugitive, long-sought-for number ! When I had shut the door, what was my surprise to see across the room another door. The apartment resembled those of old German inns, associated with robbery, murder, and ghost stories, where the door handle slowly turns, and a mysterious white figure glides in upon the tenant of the room Ha ! the handle of this door really did begin to turn, and a man in a white glazed coat stepped suddenly into the floor " What ? are you 33 too? demanded he, pointing to that number on his door. " No !" I exclaimed, pointing to my door "I'm 36!" Tableau. Then we both laughed, and each took one of the two beds that occupied the room. Christchurch is built on flat ground, on part of the Canterbury Plains. To the eastward, a few miles off, rises the high ground of Banks' Peninsula, overlooking Port Lyttelton, and separat- ing Christchurch from the sea. When the first settlers arrived, they are said to have shed tears at seeing this imposing barrier standing between the sea and such a land of promise as the plains presented. True, a road was made over the hills, but it was almost too steep for traffic, and Christchurch for a long time could be said to have no satisfactory communication with the sea. But the Canterbury people, with an enterprise worthy of all praise, have bored a tunnel a mile and three quarters long through the mountains, at a cost of ^200,000, putting Christchurch and Port Lyttelton into direct railway connection. The province of Canterbury came into being as a Church of England settlement. The first ship arrived in December of 1850, two years and a half after the Scottish settlers arrived at Dunedin. The scheme of exclusiveness did not succeed here any more than in Otago. The settlement rapidly became a mixed community. All denominations flocked to Canterbury, attracted by its many advantages. The province has made great progress. It has an area of 8,693,000 acres, two and a half million of which form the vast Canterbury Plains. The population of the province in 1874 was 58,770. Christchurch itself occupies a mile square, and has in round numbers 10,000 inhabitants. Christchurch. 199 Christchurch is a fine mellow city. The streets are named after Church of England bishoprics. The asphalte pavements are sheltered with glass-roofed verandahs some painted green, some white, but most left transparent. The chief feature of Christchurch, however, is its trees. Small triangular reserves of English elms are met with here and there about the town. Shady avenues delight the eye at frequent intervals, and every vista ends in clumps of willows. The whole town is interwoven with trees. Yet twenty-three years ago, Christchurch was a collection of treeless hillocks, the country becoming more and more sandy and sterile as it approached the sea. Except one or two of the principal streets, there is none of them that has the hard rigidity of outline, the stern business-like appearance one attaches to a metropolitan thoroughfare. There is a freedom of style, an air of saying, " This is a street certainly it cannot altogether be disguised but everything has been done to make you believe otherwise." Christchurch seemed to us a country town on a large scale, and was a most beautiful combination, of the sylvan and the urban. At one street corner we saw a railed-in artesian well. Christchurch has to dig down for its water. The wells are fed by an underground flow of the River Waimakariri through the shingly subsoil of the plains. Everybody talks to you about these wonderful wells, and you begin at last to think them (without a pun) a great bore. In another quarter we came upon a cluster of flesh-coloured wooden houses, with high peaked gables, hanging eaves, and panelled fronts outlined in brown like theatrical cottages or old English hostelries with attics, too, goggling out of the steep roof, like staring eyes, as if the houses were in great wonder at the more modern buildings around. One almost expected to see, in the middle of the street, a company of lads and lasses dancing hand-in-hand round a festooned May-pole. In Cathedral Square we saw the foundations of the grand new ecclesiastical edifice of Christchurch, which is expected to cost no less than ^50,000. Lately the work had languished from want of funds, but more money has been raised, work has been started again, and the masonry is now about nine feet above the ground. ^7000 have been buried in the foundations of this cathedral. The hotel was excellent. The charges were moderate, as they are in most New Zealand hotels. Eight to ten shillings a day is the usual charge for a single person boarders by trie week pay two guineas. The servants were all English. Instead 2OO Kennedy s Colonial Travel. of the Bridget and Molly of Melbourne, or the Jessie and Maggie of Dunedin, we had Sarah, Susan, and Mary Jane. The boarders were chiefly clerks, bank managers, families on visits, squatters, and squatters' sons. Some of the young gentle- men spent the day in playing billiards or hanging round the smok- ing-room ; others in shooting, boating, and cricketing. Once a party of them came home in a lamentable, almost ludicrous plight one run over by a waggonette, another with his arm in a sling, and a third fearfully lame from football. In a day or two, however, they were all up and doing nothing. Every morning as we came down to breakfast, we passed a long array of half-open doors, through which the waiters were busy insert- ing glasses of ale and bottles of soda-water to the fast young gentlemen inside. We became acquainted here with one of these very aristocratic young Englishmen, and were much amused at his peculiarities. We have not forgotten the look of deep disgust upon his face when, after ordering a conveyance, he saw a hackney cab drive to the door instead of a hansom ! We still recollect our interview with him when we met at the Kaiapoi Regatta, a short distance from town. " Ah ! there you are then," said he ; " dooced nuisance ; was coming down in a tandem, but one of the horses got lamed, and I had to come down by rail. Confound it ! And did you," with a look of commiseration, "did you have to come down by rail, too?" A few steps from the hotel and we reached the pretty little River Avon, which runs through the town. Its banks are sheltered by luxuriant, heavy-plumed willows, beautiful but at the same time melancholy, that throw their dense shadows upon the stream. Small white bridges spanned the river. Leaning over one of these, we looked down the long vista of trees, their branches drooping into the eddies, and watched the circles near the shore stirring the green weeds. The sun shone warmly on our backs, throwing our shadows and the shadow of the bridge down to the bottom of the clear stream. We appeared to be miles away from town. The rumble of the -big water-wheel at the large flour-mills was faintly heard, and the distant rattle of a cart, but nothing more. Near here were the public gardens, enclosed in a pear-shaped loop of this River Avon. The walks, dotted with rustic seats, were exquisite. A small park contained a number of deer, which were so tame as to troop round and eat out of our hands. Croquet obtains to some extent, and a " Toxophilite Society" holds its meetings here. The Moa. 201 In the centre of a grassy reserve, forming part of the gardens, stands the museum, a large stone building. The director is Dr Haast, a German savant, who has done great service to scientific discovery in New Zealand. All the objects are pro- perly classified and displayed. One side of a gallery contains cases of insects locusts as big as lobsters spiders like crabs carpet-patterned butterflies from every clime insects of all kinds, from the humblest pin-pointibus to the largest and most important armour-plated beetle. At the end of one room is a weird tableau a row of human skeletons, in the centre of which stands the grinning framework of a gorilla satire worthy of a Darwin. But of all the sights we saw in this museum, none excited our wonder more than the skeletons of the Moas, the giant birds of New Zealand, supposed to be now extinct in the islands. They must have been feathered giraffes. The skeleton of a moa, through the limbs being set far back and the breast overhanging, resembles that of a giraffe with the front legs lopped off. The body is comparatively small, but the thigh-bones are three or four times thicker than a man's. The leg-bones are elephantine, and filled with marrow instead of air. In the Wellington Museum there is a moa's foot with a toe eight inches and a half in length, while toe- prints have even been seen ten inches long. The largest kind of moa is the Dinornis Elephantopus, and thirteen feet its average height. None of these huge birds were able to fly. It is said they were fat and stupid creatures that they lived in forests, mountain-fastnesses and secluded caves that they were vege- tarians, but swallowed stones for digestion's sake that they were in the habit of sleeping on one leg and that they subsisted on fern-roots, which they dug up with their enormous toes. Moa remains were first discovered in 1839 by the Rev. Richard Taylor, a missionary in the North Island. Moa's eggs were found in 1852, in a position showing that the birds had been killed by the ancestors of the present Maories. The fragments of the eggs were fitted together by the scientific gentleman who found them, and several of those restored actually consisted of between 200 and 300 pieces! One perfect egg was found, nine inches in diameter, twelve inches long, and 27 inches in circumference. Every now and then, bones are unearthed from the sand-heaps or old ovens of the Maories, with a heap of quartz pebbles near them which had once been in the animal's gi/./ard. The natives are said to have slain the moas in immense battues. Can there be, by the slightest possibility, 2O2 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. any moa alive now? is the question asked by the public as well as the scientific mind. The colossal bird is known for certain to be extinct in the North Island, but is likely to be met with in the wild, almost inaccessible fastnesses of the Southern Alps. Being a night-bird, and thought to be very shy, it might have eluded all notice up to the present time. Dr Haast is said to have heard the cry of the moa. One night encamping with some fellow-explorers on the edge of an extensive forest in the great Middle Range of the South Island, he was startled by its powerful call. It awakened the whole party. They had all, at one time or another, heard the voice of the kiwi, the well-known large wingless bird of New Zealand ; but it was the cry of a child compared to the trumpet-tones of this giant ! Moas' tracks were seen in these wilds, two feet wide, running through the manuka scrub. Just a day or two ago the news- papers were ringing with reports of the "Capture of Two Moas." A telegram was published in Christchurch from a man on the West Coast, who said he had succeeded in lassoing the wonders. Great was the interest evoked amongst the people of New Zea- land. The Melbourne papers even took up the cry, one of them going the length of crowding out politics and devoting a leading article to the discovery. The Messrs Moa, however, were not to be caught. A later telegram came, stating the rope had broken, and that they had escaped. Just so ! This looming " bird of the wilderness " has yet to meet the eye of a white man. One day a Waterloo veteran called on us. He was a physical wonder eighty-four years of age, yet straight as a poker had a fine head and bold features, and wore a cap that denoted long military service. He launched at once into anecdote and reminiscence telling us, in one continuous stream, the principal events of his life. He was born in Fife, but had Highland kinsfolk enlisted early as a soldier, and lodged at the house of Mrs Grant of Laggan knew Jamie Hogg, and used to " blow up " Nathaniel Gow foj his new-fangled arrangements of reels went all through the Peninsular War, learned Gaelic from the Highlanders on the heights of Montmartre, plunged into the gaieties of Paris, fought at Waterloo, and had been on half-pay since 1817. We seemed to be shaking hands with the past. The veteran, however, was as full of the present as any one of the rising generation explained the land laws of the colony, spoke of " ceevilisation " as " deevilisation," and, with " kindling fury in his breast," inveighed against the reigning The Canterbury Pilgrims. 203 follies of the day. Suddenly, like the great Alexander, his mood changed, for, seeing a fiddle, lying on the table, he snatched it up, and dashed at once into a most inspiring strath- spey. Then he took a breath, said something more about Nathaniel's bad arrangement of reels, picked up his stick, made a salute, and went towards the door; but abruptly stopped, wheeled round, and gave us the whole of the sword-exercise in a most masterly style then made another salute, went off in double-quick time, and strode erect, with martial step, down the gravel walk in front of the hotel. This vigorous old man was like a great gulp of mountain air to us in this placid city of Christchurch. Being a Church of England settlement, you are apt to imagine this town more English than it really is. At one time, indeed, the Canterbury Pilgrims, as the early settlers were called, " ruled the roast " in social matters. Those who came out in the " first four ships " were looked up to by later arrivals. To have " come over with the Conqueror " bade fair to pale in face of having " come over in one of the first four ships." In the Southern States of America you claim blue blood by belonging to one of the "first families." In Canter- bury you had no right to be heard unless you were a passenger in one of these irrepressible "first four ships." But the old worthies are dying out now ; and on great social occasions, or at public meetings, the " fifth and sixth ship " people have to be brought in to do the honours. Later years, as we have seen, introduced likewise a more cosmopolitan state of affairs. Scotchmen have become largely part and parcel of the com- munity. This is shown by the way English people playfully introduce quaint Scotch words and phrases into their conver- sation. Even the French man-cook at the hotel, when we asked him how he was, burst out briskly with, " Ha ! eem per-r-rawlee, zenk you for zbeereen ! " However, he resided for some time in Otago, where his " well of pure French undefiled" had doubtless been contaminated. At the same hotel, too, porridge formed a prominent item on the public breakfast- table, and was " deservedly a favourite " with the aristocratic boarders, who generally went in for "second shares." As instancing the Caledonian element in Christchurch, we were told that of all the mayors who have held office in the city, two only have not been Scotch. Working people are well off in Christchurch, as we will see by one or two plain facts, which are the best means for de- 204 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. picting temporal happiness or the reverse in a new country. A Scotsman, of course, will have a predilection for Otago ; an Englishman will prefer Canterbury. But the prospects of each will be about evenly balanced. We met in Christchurch a carpenter from Glasgow, who was in the receipt of ^3, 6s. a week us. a day of eight hours. Not that his was an ex- ceptional instance of good fortune. This is the standard pay of a good workman. There is an evident desire here, as in Dunedin, to reasonably decrease the hours of work. " Never shop after two on Saturdays ! " is placarded on the walls by an Early Closing Association. The wages of the building trades are from IDS. to 123. a day of eight hours; that of the iron trades, ^3 a week, with the same number of hours. Then, as to the cost of living, there is nothing to fear. The rent of a four-roomed cottage is from los. to 125. per week; a six- roomed cottage, from 153. to 203. ; family houses, from ^70 to ;i2o per annum. Clothing is considerably dearer than at home, but food is cheap. Beef is from 3d. to 6d. a pound mutton, ad. to 3d. As to education, children can have in- struction for a very low sum. In the public schools no fees are charged, but every householder living within three miles of the school has to pay i a year, and a further sum of 55. for every child he has between the ages of six and thirteen. No person, however, is liable to pay more than i for his children, no matter how numerous, so that 2 is the extreme limit a householder can be charged for the support of the school. All the branches and elementary education are taught. The Bible is not read in the school, but clergymen visit at stated times to impart religious instruction to their several denominations. Children, whose parents or guardians object, are not compelled to be present at the teaching of history. Can the spirit of toleration further go ? After singing three weeks in Christchurch, where the Scottish songs were as highly relished as in Dunedin, we went to the country town of Rangiora. Hundreds of immigrants had just been scattered through the province. No doubt the new arrivals would all be settling down comfortably to their colonial life, with willing hands and stout hearts, nourishing few regrets. I hope many of them were unlike the servant- maid who waited on us at the Rangiora Hotel. She had been eight months out from London, and was sad at heart, because in this small place she missed the crowds of people and long continuity of well-lighted shops in Oxford and Regent An Exciting Regatta. 205 Streets. Certainly, for those who like bustle and enjoy shop- windows, these scattered hamlets and townships are not at all suitable. There is hardship, but plenty of money to be made. We saw some excellent country during this trip agricultural land that had been made the most of. Some of the ploughed furrows were nearly a quarter of a mile long. What Ontario is to Canada, Otago and Canterbury are to New Zealand. At Kaiapoi, twelve miles from Christchurch, we saw a very exciting boat-race. It took place on the River Waimakariri. The little town was blushingwith flags. Carts, drays, cabs, and hansoms lined the river banks. The dense flax had been cut away from the water's edge on one side, to allow an unbroken view of the race. A hulking, dirty steamer, gay with bunting, steamed up and down, grounding every few yards in shallow water, and at one time, by the violence of the shock, throwing the steersman over the wheel and almost overboard. Great was the excitement when the races commenced. A little bridge spanning the river was lined with human beings. The people on the water side elbowed for standing room. The great struggle was the three-mile race for the prize of 150. For this, a crew from Wellington, a crew from Christchurch, and a crew from Hokitika, the West Coast gold field, had entered. Round a bend in the river came the competing boats, with on one side a breathless, running crowd of well-wishers yelling out to their favourite crews, and on the opposite bank, crashing through the uncut flax and scrub, a solid mass of fifty or sixty horsemen tearing frantically along some half mile to the winning-post. On came the competitors, the leading crew pulling strongly and steadily, but the others rowing wildly. Amid great cheering the sturdy Hokitika men came easily to the goal. We enjoyed the regatta immensely, more especially that demoralized Rotten Row, the ponderous rush of horsemen on the river bank. We would not for all the world have missed that glorious stampede of cavalry. We took the train from Christchurch to Port Lyttelton, and passed through the wonderful tunnel connecting the two places. A dark ride of five minutes brought us into the open air and into full view of Port Lyttelton. The town is hemmed round by an enormous amphitheatre of hills, many of them hundreds of feet high, with jagged volcanic peaks, forming to the eye a wide sweep of mountain-side. The houses have extended a good way up the slopes, which of course does not detract from the exceeding picturesqueness of the town. The 206 Kennedy's Colonial Travel. harbour is spacious and protected by the irregularly-shaped heights of Banks' Peninsula, We found a very good hotel here, albeit the charges were ten shillings a head per day, an unusual rate for any but the highest class of houses. After tea, just as the twilight was setting in, we took a walk along a high road skirting one side of the harbour. The gloominess and silence of the scene were very impressive. The ships' lamps, gleaming far below, shone in the perfectly calm water, and the lights of the town, seen against a dark lofty background, twinkled thickly at the water's edge and thinned away up on the black face of the hills. Rounding a corner, the road brought us all at once completely from the town and the shipping, and stretched before our eyes the entire length of Port Lyttelton the sombre expanse of water in a still more sombre furrow of mountains, extending some miles towards the Heads. CHAPTER XVI. WELLINGTON THE HUTT VALLEY COOK'S STRAITS NELSON. WE left Port Lyttelton for Wellington in the steamship "Lady Bird," 286 tons. The passengers were chiefly commercial men, several folks on urgent business, one or two going to attend some meeting or market in short, persons who had to travel, and could not help it. I have a feeling we did not see in New Zealand so many people on pleasure trips, or on friendly visits, as we would have observed in the old country. Steamboat accommodation is not in a very matured state on the New Zealand coast. The vessels are small, often over- crowded, and not very punctual. The fares might be reduced with advantage. You pay ^3 saloon, or ^2 steerage, from Lyttelton to Wellington, a distance of 170 miles. From Dunedin to Auckland (something over 700 miles, the longest trip of the steamboat), costs & in the saloon, and $ in the steerage. But fares are high all over the colonies. Even going from Melbourne to Sydney, a little over 500 miles, you have to pay ^4 in the saloon. However, as I said, the steam- boat services of the colonies are steadily improving. There was one passenger on board, who was a marked exception to the rest, in so far as he was bound on no business whatever, but simply bent on pleasure. He was the town-clerk of Hokipoki (as we shall call it) out for a holiday. He was an old man, with juvenile spirits one of those persons who seem blest with perpetual youth " life-boys," as our humourist calls them ! " I love the sea," exclaimed the town-clerk as we sailed down the smooth harbour " I doat on it by George, this air is positively eh ? positively splendid ! " In the morning we awoke far from well, but went upstairs to have a breath of fresh air. The sky was clear, the sun bright, the wind blowing strong, and the water bursting into rainbows. On a seat lay stretched the town-clerk of Hokipoki. He seemed to be fast asleep ; but when we approached he opened his eyes fishily and moaned out, " A-a-h, that's you, is it ? I forgot say suffer headache at 208 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. sea bad that's drawback o-o-h, ugh ! severe headache too but I'm not sick must go downstairs glass wa-a-ater ! " and the unfortunate admirer of the sea disappeared into the saloon. In the course of the morning those of the passengers who were able to keep on deck gathered into a group and amused each other with " yarns of the sea." One man related an incident that occurred to his friend Brown, when, upon arriving from England at Port Lyttelton, the passengers drank the health of the vessel. Friend Brown, a water-drinker, being asked to partake, said, " No ! I'm a teetotaler ; but " (with a jaunty air) " I'll willingly drink success to the ship in the liquor she floats in ! " The steward disappeared, and returned with a tumbler of water. Brown, after a complimentary mumble, gulped it off at once, but immediately spluttered out, " Ugh ! ah ow ! this is ooh ! Epsom, Gregory what what the materia medica is this ? " " That ! " exclaimed the steward ; " why, you've drunk success to our noble ship in the identical liquor she floats in ! " Of course we had all to laugh at this story, which encouraged another man to burst out with " Ha, ha, ha talking of drinking, the ship I came out in had a captain and mate who were continually quarrelling on the voyage. They fought it out in the log-book. The captain wrote down one evening, ' Mate drunk to-day,' which the mate no sooner saw next morning than he scribbled underneath, ' Captain sober to-day ! ' Had him there ! " With stories like these the time passed pleasantly. The shores of the South Island became indistinct. We were crossing the eastern extremity of Cook's Straits, the famous channel separating the principal islands of New Zealand. We had left the South Island, with its prosperous settlements, its thriving towns, its " mountain and its flood," its Alpine ranges, its immense plains, its many gold fields, its large farms, its extensive sheep-runs. Now we were turning our eyes towards the North Island, with its older settlements, its beautiful scenery, its rich vegetation, its volcanic wonders, its burning mountain, its geysers, warm lakes, and hot springs in short, to Maori-Land. Steaming on, we saw the entrance to Port Nicholson, the harbour of Wellington a rugged mouth, armed on the western shore by sharp rocky teeth, between which were sticking the bones of several vessels wrecked during a gale. Entering the Heads, we came in view of Somes' Island, on which the quarantine station is perched, rounded the Miramar Peninsula, and soon the whole panorama of Wellington unfolded itself before us. Wellington. 209 Port Nicholson is a commodious, fairly-sheltered harbour, seven miles long and five miles broad. The town is built on a fringe of land, backed by hills like Dunedin ; but the houses do not rise so high on the heights behind. It is splendidly situated for pictorial effect. No place we have seen makes so much of its opportunity ; every part of it is visible in the long stretch of buildings that line the harbour. Wellington is the capital of New Zealand, a distinction conferred upon it in 1865. Auckland was formerly the chief town of the colony, but jealousies in the South Island, and the fact that the seat of Government was becoming too remote for the growing interests of Otago and Canterbury, made some more central position necessary. The city of Wellington has 10,675 inhabitants, the province of Wellington 29,654. The capital is now crowned with a triple honour being the seat of a City Corpora- tion, under the Mayor ; the seat of its Provincial Council, under its Superintendent ; and the seat of the Colonial Parlia- ment, under his Excellency the Governor. Imagine a timber-built metropolis ! Wellington, being subject to earthquakes, is constructed entirely of wood. It has, how- ever, really a splendid appearance. Grand cornices, towers, steeples, balconies, verandahs, porches, shop-fronts, and pillars are seen at every turn all wooden, but having quite an impos- ing look (in two senses) even when you are close to them. It is surprising the variety and elegance of form produced by means of wood, supplemented by paint and sand. The town curves in horse-shoe fashion round the edge of the harbour. It is narrow, strange to say, in the central portion, and widens out at each end on the flats of Te Aro and Thorndon. All the country about Wellington is mountainous. But for a road and railway that run along the beach to the Hutt Valley, and struggle, as it were, for foothold between the hills and the sea, the capital would have very imperfect connection with the back country of the province. We lived at the " Empire Hotel," the abode of comfort. The building was formerly a theatre, and there was plenty of space everywhere. A lofty hall and broad stairs met our eye on entering. Our sitting-room had an abnormally high ceiling, round which the flies seemed to be soaring like larks in a distant aerial vault. The private rooms were separated from the public by a courtyard, crossed at both ends by a high enclosed gallery. There was also a kind of smoking verandah at the back, where the boarders discussed their cigars, and gazed 2IO Kennedy's Colonial Travel. out upon the harbour for the water came close to the hotel and lapped the stone foundations. The hotel, with several other buildings in town, put us greatly in mind of the amphibious houses of Lerwick, in Shetland. The water was positively dark with fish. Any rubbish emptied out by the cook immediately attracted thousands; a morsel of garbage instantly became a focus of fish. I never saw water alive before. The small fry stewed and simmered in dense layers, literally hustling each other up above the surface. You had simply to throw in your line, and it tightened immediately. The terms of the hotel, as we saw on small bills pasted in the bed-rooms, were: "For single gentlemen, IDS. per day, ^3 per week; for two or more weeks, 2, los. Married couples (bed-room and sitting-room), ^10 per week." No one who intends making Wellington his home need be frightened at the earthquakes. There are occasional shocks felt, but they are not alarmingly powerful. The shocks at Wellington are as distinct from the earthquakes of South America as a breeze is from a typhoon. Wellington is the centre of atmospheric as well as terrestrial disturbances. The blasts blow over the harbour remorselessly. As a Dunedin man, it is said, can be told by his stoop, as if climbing hills ; so a Wellington man is known abroad by the mechanical way he screws up his eyes and claps his hand on his hat ! One storm we will not forget in a hurry. It was during the month of April, which corresponds to our October. The gale blew from the north-east. The sky became clogged with clouds. The surface of the harbour was obscured every moment by a thin veil of spray swept from the tops of the waves. The hotel swayed and creaked like an old ship during the gusts. To write steadily was far from easy. There was a continual rattle of roof- iron, a clatter of Venetian blinds, and a violent slamming of doors. Lull and gust followed in regular succession for hours, till a downpour of rain, crashing on the iron roofs of the buildings, came as a new feature in the storm. Every night we saw about as queer a way of lighting street lamps as could well be imagined. A rattle of hoofs was heard, and a man cantered up on horseback to a lamp-post. He drew bridle, rose up, stood on the saddle like a circus-rider, struck a match, lit the lamp, sank once more into the stirrups, and galloped noisily off the rapidly-increasing lights bearing testimony to the quick- ness of this novel system. Here we saw Maories for the first time in any numbers. The Maories. 2 1 1 Going along Lambton Quay we met a native in full European costume in velvet coat, light tweed trousers, and white hat, with silver-headed cane and heavy gold chain, and tattooed so that you could scarcely distinguish his eyes. Every inch of him proclaimed "Am I not a man and a swell?" and he looked as if he owned thousands of acres, as perhaps he did, or as if he were a member of Parliament, as perhaps he was, for there are four Maories now in the Assembly two on the Government benches, and two on the Opposition. Maories, taught by white man's example, are worldly wise, and take care of their broad acres, leasing them well or selling them at a goodly price. Many of the natives are rich, have large farms, cultivate their land, and come in with their crops to market as regularly as any of the settlers. The Maories are well-built fellows, with brown skin, black straight hair, sharp eyes, and high cheek-bones like a China- man. None but the older natives bear the tattoo marks. The younger men have learned better, or have been shamed out of the custom by contact with the whites. They are brave, excitable, shrewd, patriotic, and eloquent. We were informed by a member of the Legislative Assembly (and therefore a judge) that they were "grand spouters." Their store of tradition, fable, poetry, proverb, and song is endless. They are undoubtedly the Scotchmen of savages, though there is one thing against this comparison their women are ugly ! A Maori man is nearly always superior in looks to his better half. Some of the very young women have a kind of comeliness, but they age fast. They have big thick lips, flat noses, narrow foreheads, liquid eyes, and, terrible to relate, are guilty of inveterate smoking. The Maories are said to be very lazy at times ; but what savage or what civilized man of any standing can clear himself of this charge ? We saw more Maories Maori girls in tartan dresses and Rob Roy shawls; others in light blue gowns; and, as we well remember, a Maori and his wife walking along the pave- ment in decent middle-class clothes, the husband carrying the baby very dutifully, and his spouse gazing at the ribbons in the drapers' windows. Both displayed high civilisation! Every day we saw Maories, all well clad, and distinguishable only by their darker skin. We missed the picturesque robes and plumed head-dresses of the savage, though we were told that the native, when he goes back to the country, throws off the clothes of the pakeha (white man) and wraps himself again in hisblanket. Business would appear to be well pushed in this town. Out of 212 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. a newspaper we culled some advertising facts : " Messrs Kirkcaldie & Fife have made arrangements with all the Continental manufacturers for a supply of Elegant Costumes for the Parliamentary Sessions." " Colonial Industry ! H. Liardet has ready for winter a stock of muffs and tippets made from skins of choice New Zealand birds." Mr Sloper advertises : " How to avoid paying ad valorem duty buy Wellington boots ! " (by which, of course, he meant boots made in town). Among the public buildings, the churches, of which there are fifteen, must of course rank first. Two of them are Pres- byterian. One has for minister a reverend gentleman formerly of Chatham, New Brunswick. The other pulpit is filled by a clergyman from Ayrshire, from whom we heard one Sabbath a sound practical sermon on the text, "Look also on the things of others ; " in the course of which he urged his congregation " to go down to the wharf when a vessel appears, take notice of the numerous immigrants arriving on their shores, speak kindly to them, and shelter them if necessary, or at all events give them cordial welcome to this strange, new land." We did not miss seeing the Museum, which is under the direction of Dr Hector, F.R.S., and is worthy a visit, if only for the sake of the memorials of the Maori war the banners used by the natives and some other trophies. But even more interesting to us was the "Maori House," which has lately been added to the building. It was built in 1842 by the Ngatikaipoho tribe at Turanga as a monument to the memory of Tamata Waako Tuangere, elder brother of the present chief. We found our- selves in a room forty-three feet long and eighteen feet wide, with a sloping roof twelve feet high. The side walls were ornamented by thirty-two heads of celebrated Maories, carved out of solid totara wood hideous faces, carved and tattooed out of all trace of human lineaments, as if the originals had died from an eruption of filigree ornament. The big eye- sockets were filled in with green mother-of-pearl shells, which glistened horribly after us as we moved about the room. The heads are supposed to be true portraits of different individ- uals to us they were all as like as two peas but the Maories may have as much imagination as we North Britons require when we wander past the "long line of kings" in the Picture Gallery of Holyrood. A short distance from the Museum are the Houses of Parlis ment, as grand as it is possible for wood to make them. We were shown over the buildings by Mr M'Coll, the Govemmer The New Zealand Parliament. 213 librarian, an excellent Scotsman, who showed us repeated kindness during our stay. He took us through the reading- room and the library, bringing us as a conclusion to the Hall of the Legislative Assembly. The library is exceedingly valuable, containing many very costly books. A large sum of money is to be spent in new Parliament buildings. But un- certainty prevails about constructing them more substantially, as at any moment an earthquake might " make a motion " in the House. On our second visit to Wellington, some months afterwards, we heard a debate in the House. The hall of the Legislative Assembly is a lofty white-painted room, with red- curtained recesses all round, and illuminated from the high roof by gas-jets concealed in ground glass, which sheds a brilliant but beautifully-softened light. Across the House from us sat two of the four Maori members who find a place in the Assembly. One of them was very much tattooed. The other dark-skinned statesmen rose, holding a sheet of paper, and with his finger following the place on the page, he spoke regarding " A Committee on Native Grievances " gobbled in fiery Maori accents, while a prosaic interpreter coldly translated his clauses into English the question being, whether the Committee on Native Affairs should be drawn entirely from the North Island. Another night we heard Premier Vogel deliver his " Budget Speech," and on this occasion the House presented a livelier appearance. The strangers' gallery was crowded to the door. Below us, the hall was fully seated with members, some writing, some reading, some looking wearied. One of the Ministerial benches was occupied by our strange trio of the previous evening. The tattooed native leant over one end of the seat fast asleep, the other Maori snored full length along the other, while on the only available space of room between them sat the interpreter, with folded arms and closed eyes. The cause of this somnolency lay no doubt in the fact that nothing more important than Immigration and the state of the Exchequer was on the tapis, to the exclusion of all Maori grievances, no matter how absorbing ! Behind a table stood the Hon. Julius Vogel, the Premier of New Zealand. As such, he is the projector of a daring scheme, which consists in borrowing large sums of money, constructing railways all over the islands to open up the country, and at the same time introducing a flood of immigration to occupy the land and n the taxation. He is forcing forward New Zealand on a 214 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. hot-house principle, instead of waiting for the slower, surer, and less brilliant growth the common course of events would pro- duce. As an Invercargill man said to us : "The country is just flourishing fictitiously on a meretricious prosperity of borrowed money ! " The colony, with its population of 341,000, has a debt of ^"12,000,000, though it must be remembered that much of the outlay is now bearing a return, the new rail- ways showing already a considerable profit. As a speaker, the Premier disappointed us a little, but we felt in the presence of a man of great grasp of mind. Now he would melt out into such a sunny, such a genial smile, and poke a sly joke at honourable members, the honourable members laughing to a man. Then he would come out with some trenchant fact, and make a kind of mutter spread over the assembly, which, however, he would blandly pass unnoticed. He gave in succession his plans for the various provinces, the expenditure on each of them, the railways to be made, and the further development of the immi- gration scheme, winding up by a peroration, in which he con- trasted New Zealand four years ago and New Zealand now then dull and torpid, now lively, energetic, and on the high road to prosperity. The grades of society are very strongly marked in Well- ington. Being the seat of Government, there is a high upper circle of aristocracy, which is more apparent than in any other New Zealand town. During the sitting of Parliament there is quite a gala time. The members of the Legislative Assembly are here four months of the year. Then is the season of dinners the Governor's dinner, the Premier's dinner, the Hon. Member's dinner. Then take place the Governor's garden-party, the Governor's pic-nics, and the Governor's levee, where the members of the upper ten bow to their august head. The Civil Service is largely represented in Wellington. Working-men here have full share of that tide of prosperity now flowing over New Zealand. There are the usual grumblers, of course. An extensive employer told us of some men who had left the Shetlands on is. 8d. a day, but who turned up their noses when offered 2, 8s. a week. "You see, sir," said they, " we have our families to keep. Eight shillings a day just think of our taking that ! " The fellows were afterwards seen with their families in the three-shilling seats at the theatre. As companion pictures to this were several instances of ill-luck and bad management. We heard that many persons had gone to ruin, principally through drink. Spendthriftness was also A Mysterious Haggis. 215 not unknown. A seedy man was pointed out on the street who had achieved fame by running through a fortune of ;l 00,000. It was our privilege to meet some nice people here. We became acquainted with one of the " merchant princes " of Wellington a Scotsman, who, with his lady, showed us great kindness. One of our mornings was taken up by a gossip with a very old but well-preserved gentleman from the Hutt. Like the veteran we met in Christchurch, he was interested in events that had long passed into history. His conversation was musty he seemed to be speaking in old-faced type vocally the same to us as if we were reading some worm-eaten book. He was a literary character, a university-bred Edinburgh man was acquainted with men that were friends of Burns knew Chloris and Clarinda, and spoke of the Potterrow as quite a fashionable street. His antique gossip was interspersed with fragments of Scottish songs, but always the versions that have now either become quaint or almost obsolete. In bidding him good-bye, we felt like losing our hold on the link of a chain that stretched back into " auld lang syne." We found that in the colonies a person's home-yearnings lay considerably in a culinary direction. An example came before us here of a courageous but inexperienced lady trying to please her Scottish husband by making a haggis ! We had the thrilling story from her own lips. By dint of long reading and research, the ingredients were all carefully collected and prepared. Ere the final making of the dish, a female friend was called into consultation. Then the last act was done. Plump ! went the globular mass into the pot. A mutual smile of triumph spread over the faces of the two ladies, but it was quickly changed to an expression of dismay as they saw the unlucky haggis floating on the top ! Strenuous efforts were made to poke it down, but the national dish obstinately persisted in its attempts to prove itself light eating. The despairing operators latterly called in an experienced woman from next door, who counselled them to puncture the pudding with a fork. This done, to the joy of all concerned, the offending haggis " sank beneath the wave." After some hours' boiling, it was dished, but the result proved utter failure, for the haggis was unfit to eat, and was viewed with a distaste which not even a strong love of country could successfully overcome. Though not here during the season of fashionable fites, there was a very important " assembly " held at this time the ball 216 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. given by Messrs Brogden, the contractors, on the completion of the eight-mile railway to the Hutt. All the elite of the town were gathered together. Five hundred ladies and gentlemen put in an appearance, among them the Hon. Julius Vogel, Mrs Vogel, and other members of the "Government." Of course there were Maories present fashionable Maories, for none else could be admitted. One of them was worth ^6000 a year. The Hon. Wi Tako was there, also Miss Wi Tako, and several others. The native ladies, when they come into town for a ball or party, get themselves up in really grand style, but do not feel one bit comfortable in such an unaccustomed dress. Their boots feel tight, for one thing. The brown damsels go into corners every now and then, and nurse their toes. This, however, may be one of those slanders which are so rife against the poor Maories. We had an interesting drive to the Hutt Valley, in a cab the glazed side-curtains of which had been blown to pieces a day or two before by a violent gale. The road was narrow, and went side by side with the railway along the edge of the harbour. By the seashore an old Maori woman was filling a basket with cockles, a favourite native dish. A cartful of Maories met us. Two women, dressed in bright-dyed matting, and with coloured cloth bands round their heads, squatted and smoked in the bottom of the vehicle, waved their hands towards us, and showed great signs of delight ; while we, not to be outdone in politeness by savages, returned them quite a wind- mill salute with our arms. Three other Maories galloped past us one, dressed in tweeds and a felt hat, rode in front, with a double-barrelled gun slung over his shoulder, followed by two younger men all dressed as neatly and as picturesquely as if they had just made their exit from a " Monster Clothing Shop." The sites of various Maori "pahs" were pointed out to us. Twenty-five years ago, ten or twelve of these fortified enclosures commanded the heights we were now passing, and were con- structed to prevent the incursions of other Maories from the neighbourhood of Taranaki. We passed Ngahauranga, a station on this Hutt line what a mouthful for the shouting railway- porter ! Near here stood in former years the pah of Waripori, an influential Maori; but its strength and glory have long since decayed, and all that is seen on the hillside now is the monu- ment to the great chief his once formidable war-canoe, half buried, prow up, in the earth that covers his remains. The Hutt Valley is a quiet place, shaded by steep hills, and The Hutt Valley. 217 fertile. This lovely spot was a different place twenty-eight years ago. After the treaty of Waitangi, Hone Heke, an ambi- tious Maori chief, with a band of inflamed followers, disclaimed the sovereignty of the Queen, tore down the British flag at Kororareka, laid the place in ruins, and swept down the Island. On the 1 6th of March 1846, fifty Maories attacked a garrison at the Hutt, slew six men, and severely wounded others ; then swam to the main body of the tribe across the river, where two hundred of the savages executed a wild war-dance in honour of the massacre. Wellington at this time was under martial law, and the settlers were flocking in from the Hutt for protection. Europeans were murdered in the remoter districts of this valley. The settlers were armed and kept on the alert in outposts. So serious did matters become that the abandonment of Port Nicholson was earnestly talked of, but the settlers boldly lived through all these times of danger, and now reap the fruits of energy and perseverance. This was the first serious Maori outbreak known to old colonists as " Heke's War." During the few hours of our visit we had a talk with several old residents ; met also a man who was the only surviving member of a large family murdered by the Maories. We went into a store the keeper of which had been thirty-four years here, and had led a peaceable life with the natives. The store was, as is usual, a lot of shops in one sold ironmongery, drapery, grocery, boots and shoes, beer and ale, medicine, tallow, oil, books, stationery, and a host of other things. What a blow to the art of " shopping." How could any city-bred person stand here and buy everything he wanted at once? Our storekeeper had not much to say against the natives, several of whom were in making purchases. They trusted him, or rather he " trusted " them. All over the world, it would seem, the only way to gain the confidence of a savage is to deal honourably by him. Of course there is another side to the picture. Before the war of 1846, some of the Maories had got largely into debt with the storekeeper, who had been just a little too trusting. After the fighting was over, he ventured to put in his little biil, but it was laughed to scorn. " No, no," said the Maories, "the war pay all ! " A new state of things had commenced, in their opinion. And our friend of the shop is not paid to this day. We had a rough journey crossing Cook's Straits to Nelson. Leaving Wellington Heads the steamer encountered the usual gale that blows through the Pentland Firth of New Zealand. The 218 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. wind blew a hurricane the spray flew like rain over the vessel one blast tore a sail into rags. Irishmen, Germans, Chinamen, and Maories filled the fore part of the small steamboat. The Irishmen proudly flourished their brogue, the German farmers sang together " Die Wacht am Rhein ; " the Maories, their faces quite blue with tattoo-marks, talked volubly in their rather melancholy tones ; the Chinamen moved oilily about the stalls on deck, and chucked the horses under their chins. The captain, like many others we met in the colonies, had a strong taste for music, mixing up orders and patches of tunes in a very amusing way. " Let's drink his health in wine port ! " " When the swallows homeward fly north by west ! " " Loud roared the dreadful thunder how's her head?" Just about dusk we approached the lofty headlands marking the entrance to Queen Charlotte's Sound, up which we steamed to Picton, a port on the way to Nelson. The water was calm, and locked in by bold, ponderous land, that stood out magnificently in the deepening darkness. At eight o'clock, after twenty miles of this grand Sound, we were moored at Picton, and the moon gave us a glimpse of the scattered, hill-surrounded township. The population is not large, but it has swollen 300 during the last three years, owing, as a rival town has it, to a vessel having been wrecked here, and relieved of her passengers ! We had a moonlight stroll, and then came back to bed. The bunks were the smallest we had ever seen. A person boasting five feet of height had to lie with pyramidal knees. Four in- dividuals breathed the air of one. Between every eight berths was a small washstand, and a person had to watch lynx-eyed for a momentary dash at the basin. The steamer left Picton at four in the morning. About breakfast-time, we approached the "French Pass," which separates an island from the mainland. We were told to look for the deep funnel-holes in the water, caused by the swirling of the sea through the narrow channel also for the heaving of the vessel in the throes of the tide. Disappointment ensued. The waters went into small whirlpools, but there was no great tidal phenomena. However, the sail through the exceedingly contracted passage, with high cliffs on either hand, was very interesting. We could have thrown a biscuit on shore at one side. The steamer entered Blind Bay, and drew gradually up to Nelson. The sun was hot, and the sea shone smooth. Every one lay at full length on the deck. The general feeling both of sea and sky was one of extreme somnolence. By-and- Nelson. 2 19 by we noticed a strange sight what we had taken for a long stretching shingle beach began to move past quicker than the coast-line. Of course we concluded that this "beach" was much nearer to us than the shore. It was the famous Boulder Bank, the natural breakwater to Nelson Harbour. This strange formation runs for eight miles along the coast. It is supposed by geologists to have been washed down from a headland and gradually carried out by the tides. Nelson is situated on the northern shores of the South Island, at the western extremity of Cook's Straits. Geographi- cally, it should have followed our description of Christchurch, but the steamer goes from the latter place to Wellington, then zig-zags back through the Straits to Nelson. This place was named after the hero of Trafalgar, its streets after his famous compatriots. It was founded by the New Zealand Company, who were encouraged by the success of their first settlement at Wellington. The young colony progressed under some difficulties. After a while, it was found that the site selected was not large enough, so a band of explorers departed in search of additional country. The fertile Wairau Valley was discovered. Two chiefs, Rauparaha and Rangihaeta, claimed it by conquest, came over Cook's Straits with a body of followers, and drove the expedition away. The police magistrate then armed seventy special constables, thinking by a simple display of force to frighten the Maories. But the Europeans, labouring men not used to fire-arms, found themselves no match for the Maori warriors. The natives forced the settlers up the hills, and slew twenty-two of them. Such was the famous Wairau Massacre, which took place thirty years ago, and did so great damage to British prestige in New Zealand. It was the first and last encounter in the South Island between the Maories and the settlers. Nelson rises on a gentle slope from the harbour. It is the headquarters of quietness cradled amongst hills, and fanned to sleep by warm zephyrs, with its back turned to the winds and the tumult of the Straits. The heavens look benignly upon it the climate is the most enjoyable in the colony. Nelson, by universal consent, is called the " Garden of New Zealand." It is almost impossible to speak of it in moderate language. The streets of the town looked to us like roads the houses were principally peak-gabled wooden houses, with here and there a square stone " block " while taking the place of street lamps were green oil-lanterns on the top of white wooden posts. 22O Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. From a hill we looked down upon a beautiful view. Nelson lay intersected by roads, and interspersed with trees. All the colours of autumn shone around vivid green plots framed in by tall poplars vineyards with yellow foliage bright red bushes, elms, beeches, willows, orange-leaved shrubs avenues of brilliant transparent green patches of ground piled up with stacks of hop-poles like muskets orchards, gardens, fields, bush, scrub, flax, and fern. The red berries of the sweetbriar mixed with the yellow blossoms of the broom. In a meadow a party of youths, in coloured caps, were tussling at football. Little singing streams, crossed by hand-rail bridges, ran into gaps of hawthorn hedges ; larks, which are numerous in the province, carolled above us. The ground was densely, strewn with a carpet of leaves, which fell in a golden shower from the elms. Blue-roofed cottages were perched on the hill-slopes, with a wealth of flowers in front of them, like baits for more sunshine. The river Matai flowed at our feet, dazzling with broken light, as if it had washed down diamonds and silted them up in the channel. No mere inventory of charms, how- ever, can justly describe the bright picture. Beyond the town lay the smooth harbour, lined by the wonderful boulder bank, the straight regularity of which was relieved by the tower of the lighthouse then farther off, the waters of Blind Bay, a sheet of blazing light. As background stood the first rising of the mighty Alps that occupy the interior of the South Island mountains stretching majestically through a purple mist, as far as we could see, with Mount Arthur as the loftiest peak, 8000 feet high. The weather was ecstatic the whole time we were in Nelson. " This is a delicious climate you have here," said we to a Scotchman " have you had many days of fine weather lately ? " " Ou aye," said he, " it's been real gude for the last twa year ! " While here we received from the pilot of the harbour, a Scotchman, every possible attention. In the morn- ings he took us across the harbour to the boulder bank, where we had enjoyable bathing. Our friend also arranged a pic-nic on Rabbit Island, a mile or two out in the bay, beyond the breakwater. A boat was supplied with a cask of provisions, a basket of fruit, and a filter of fresh water. After a tedious row against tide we landed on the island a sandy, scrub-grown spot, fit residence for a Crusoe, but not very promising for a pleasure party. However, on groping our way through the manuka, we came to a place where bits of burnt stick, A Wreck in Blind Bay. 221 improptu fire-grates, ashes, awB bottles, showed that others had been before us. We lit a fire and made tea, while a bounteous " spread " of good things was laid out by our kind entertainer. When we had finished, we wandered about the island, disturb- ing stray rabbits, and enjoying the sea view. This bay is sometimes a roaring sea, as we heard from the lips of the pilot. Scene : A fully-laden brig riding at anchor. Exit captain and crew to the shore. Fierce gale begins to blow vessel drags from her moorings pilot and men put off to the rescue go on board crash ! the vessel rends herself on a rock. Exit right and left the crew of the pilot boat. Dismay ! the boat is inextricably fastened to the brig, which is settling fast by the head. " Have any of us knives ? " " No." " Then we are all gone men." Pilot dashes his hand into his pocket " Ha! here's an old blade." Quickly the rope is sawed through. " Hurrah! we're saved!" Almost too late ! One of the crew, not quick enough to escape, is whirled down into the bowels of the sea, reappears from a great depth, and is dragged half- drowned into the boat, which has pushed off as the vessel sinks. Drop scene. As finale to this spasm of a drama, the pilot showed us the valuable knife, which he had found and mechani- cally sharpened only the day before the wreck. We went to see the races here, four miles out The attend- ance was not large, but the people were commendably orderly, and gambling unknown. We saw an exciting steeplechase " over three miles of good hunting-country." The spectators galloped their horses over hill and down dale after the jockeys, jumping fences and ditches in the most reckless manner. The site of the course was worth the journey to see homestead and field, river and wood, rising ground and plain, dark 'green hill and shaded hollow, stretching away to a faint, far upland, behind which, through a horizon of mist, rose the snow-sprinkled Alpine ranges. I am afraid that several times we missed an interesting race looking at the entrancing prospect. The population of Nelson province is 22,566. Its resources are exhaustless. Thanks to the fertile valleys, however, farming is very profitable. Sheep are reared on the rich grasses of the hills. Valuable timber is found on the ranges. The genial climate encourages all fruits and flowers. Then the Nelson people have awakened to the fact that a fortune lies at their doors a regular mountain of iron, the Para Para, with thousands of tons of valuable ore lying ready for the furnace. We met a decent young Scotsman, an ironworker, who said he 222 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. had been in the colonies four years had sailed first to Mel- bourne, but found it too hot to work at a blast-furnace there came to Nelson, and, as foreman, was superintending the moulding at an ironfoundry for ^4 a week was a teetotaler and well off paid sixteen shillings per week for his house, and 3d. to 6d. per pound for his beef thought himself the contented man and was the first who smelted the Para Para ore. To persons wishing a retired life, or the thorough teaching of their children, this province offers many advan- tages. Nelson was the first place in New Zealand that brought out a system of popular education. CHAPTER XVII. TARANAKI MOUNT EGMONT THE CITY OF AUCKLAND THE THAMES GOLD FIELD A MAORI DEBAUCH. AFTER seven performances in the pretty town of Nelson, we left for Auckland. The steamer sailed at eleven o'clock at night. Having secured our berths, the next thing was to se- cure sleep, but a crowd of men in the saloon banished that idea talking incessantly of the wheat crop, and the present and prospective prices of wool playing cards all the while and chinking the stakes in an ostentatious way. We did not close our eyes till an early hour. In the morning high land was seen on the horizon Cape Egmont, the principal promontory on the west coast of the North Island. Slowly we crept up towards it, till at last the base of Mount Egmont came in sight. The summit was in- visible owing to heavy overhanging clouds. The vegetation on shore was of the densest and richest description. We rounded the cape, a line of cliffs one hundred feet high passed through a group of outstanding rocks like a marine Stonehenge, and dropped anchor in the roadstead of Taranaki, about half-a-mile from the shore. Through a powerful glass we viewed the town, which was prettily situated, sloping up from the water's edge, with the houses standing amongst trees, luxuriant bush in the rear, and the lower slopes of Egmont as a further background. The beach was dark-coloured with tons upon tons of iron-sand. In the centre of the town rose a flat-topped hill, called Marsland, the summit crowned with a fortified stockade enclosing a group of buildings. This was the shelter for the settlers during the Maori war some ten years ago, but is now transformed into Immigration Barracks. Taranaki is to a great extent cut off from the world. The surf rolls heavily on the beach. There is sometimes great risk in landing, and occasionally the steam- boats have to pass without calling in. This detracts from the place as a settlement. Mount Egmont was first sighted by Tasman, the Dutch 224 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. voyager, in December of 1642. In 1772 Captain Cook arrived and named the mountain after the Earl of Egmont. Then whalers came and went about here for a period of sixty years. The Maories at this time were of the most depraved nature. We hear ghoul-like stories of their cruel wars, sometimes bordering on the grotesque how the introduction of fire-arms produced fierce struggles between the various tribes how thousands of the Taranaki natives were slain and many taken cap- tive how a Maori tribe crucified a hostile chief qn the gateway of his "pah," and ate up some hundreds of his people how twelve sailors of a whaling-ship were killed in a quarrel with the natives, and how the Maories attacked the vessel itself, plundering it of a large cargo of soap, which they ate ravenously with most disastrous effects! In 1841 the ships arrived with the immigrants for the settlement of New Plymouth, or Taran- aki principally Cornishmen, and all of so good character that for many years they could not raise a criminal amongst them. From all accounts they seem to have been a good- hearted, industrious people, proud of their new home even raising a stirring song at their farmers' clubs in praise of their grand mountain, the gist being that no matter what troubles, trials, or difficulties arose, the colonists should one and all keep up their hearts, for " Old Egmont crowned the land!" All the troubles of the native war were concentrated here, taking their rise in that great source of Maori dispute to this day the question as to the real ownership of land. A tract of country, the Waitara Block, was bought from a native called Taylor, to whom it undoubtedly belonged. But the chief of the tribe denied the right to sell it ; and when the surveyors came, the native women quietly drove them away. The Government threatened the Maories that if more resistance was offered, the offenders would be fired upon. The next occasion saw the surveyors' chain hacked in two. On Sunday the 4th of March 1860, this latest and fiercest of the Maori wars com- menced. In February of 1861 the battle of Huirangi took place, in which the natives lost thirty-six men. Not long after, in a fight near the town, 1700 English soldiers were panic- stricken by a volley from forty-one Maories. Another Preston- pans ! General Cameron carried the campaign into the Waikato district, where the instigators of the Taranaki tribe dwelt, and where some of the most terrible struggles took place between the natives and the troops. Then there sprang up in Taranaki a new Maori religion, the " Pai Mount Egmont. 225 Marire," the followers of which were called Hau-Haus (How- Hows), from the barking sound they made during their wild devotions. The head of an English captain, who had perished in an encounter, was cut off and embalmed, and an insane native flourished it as the oracle of the new faith. This belief was a mixture of Papistry, Maori superstition, Biblical facts, and gibberish, which they chanted round their Niu or sacred pole. Any lingering spark of Christianity was quenched the Maories who embraced this religion swept back at once into cannibalism and debauchery, drinking the blood and swallowing the eyes of their enemies. This religion had great influence for many years, and still exists in a subdued form amongst the natives. We met a number of Hau-Haus near Auckland. The Taranaki natives never acknowledged defeat, but were gradually driven off the disputed territory. The war ended in 1865, the English troops being assisted greatly by the colonial volunteers, who were more expert in pah-capturing than their brother redcoats. Such was the war as waged under the shadow of Mount Egmont. Were we never to see this great peak ? The sluggish clouds shifted uneasily on the mountain's side, but failed to rise. From the shore there came, undulating over the heavy rollers, a large white surf-boat, rowed by two or three rough-looking fellows with unwieldy oars, followed by a smaller boat containing a sample of the Taranaki folks, not omitting our interesting acquaintances the Maories. Several native women were on board the steamer, and when some female friends came up the gangway, they rubbed noses in a leisurely manner, accompanied by a long, plaintive, nasal wail. Probably only a few days had elapsed between this meeting and the last, but the tone of their noses had a wealth of sentiment : " Oh, oh ! what weary, weary years have groaned their dreary length along since we last met; and to see you now, when we had given up all hope ah, ah, ah ! " While we were watching the boat, the wind had blown the clouds off Mount Egmont. When we looked round, the grand peak stood before us, far higher in the sky than where our eyes had been fixed, and seeming to have no connection with the earth's surface. It looked to us like a mirage-mountain, so lofty, so isolated, so removed was it from the detracting influences of other heights. Mount Egmont is 8270 feet high, an extinct volcano, and the most perfect cone in New Zealand. A long black band of cloud cut it in half, making a kind of double mountain the lower slopes shadowed p 226 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. by the cloud, the summit catching the full rays of the sun, and of a light tawny brown colour, with downward dark lines representing rifts in the mountain-side. It came to a very sharp point, or double-lipped crater, containing a blob of snow, some of which had trickled out in small drifts at the narrow mouth of the peak. We had seen a mountain for the first time. The massive ranges of Lake Wakatip had a prolonged grandeur, but not the height or symmetry of Egmont. The steamer left Taranaki late in the afternoon. The dividing belt of cloud vanished, and left the full contour of the mountain displayed. The sun set, the strip of the town faded into the rising mists, and Mount Egmont, now a shadowy mass, was in time swallowed up in the darkness. In the morning we neared the Manukau Heads, the entrance to the western harbour of Auckland, but as the tidal signals were against us, we dropped anchor outside. At breakfast there arose a discussion about the Maories, founded upon the inci- dents of the preceding day, one dark-whiskered Scotsman being exceedingly savage in his attacks on the native race. " 'Od," said he, " they should a' be hounded into a piece o' grund just big enough to hold them, and let us white folks have whatever land we want set them up, the broon beggars ! " This man was only one of a large number in the North Island, who look upon the natives as incumbrances to be got rid of as soon as possible. This class is not in the majority, for most people wish to do the Maories justice. Moreover, during the past few years this party has decreased. The latest, and let us hope the last native war, if it resulted in nothing else, at any rate enabled the Maories to assert themselves, like the Scots of old under the invasions of the Edwards, and earn from both Government and people a great deal more respect and consid- eration. Sitting next me at table was a man who laid pretence to extraordinary powers of physiology. " Watch," he whispered " watch that long row of persons in front of us observe their various temperaments I'll tell you who'll take tea and who'l take coffee just from the party's looks, you know." The steward commenced his questioning. " Now," said the physi- ologist, " examine carefully that man immediately opposite- he's a tea-man, he's sure to take tea his quick nervous eyes, his fidgety manner, his hair too watch-!" " Tea or coffee, sir ? " said the steward. " Coffee ! " cried the man, " asked it hours ago coffee, coffee, coffee ! " I hardly ventured to look at A Kauri Forest. 227 neighbour after this, though the perturbed state of his feelings was only shown by the harsh staccato manner in which he buttered his toast. During the detention here, the time was spent in angling. Two or three "schnapper" were brought on board. Then a "dog-fish," like a blind puppy about the head, and its body something of the conger-eel in shape a dry, rough-skinned fish, with no eyes visible save when you forced open its stiff eye-lids writhing like a snake when landed on deck, slowly and painfully twisting its tail into its mouth at every turn. Afterwards a most lovely creature was hauled up - the gurnard an exquisite fairy fish, about thirteen inches long. It had a dullish red body, dotted with vivid red spots. On each side of its head was a large delicate fin, or wing, coloured dark green, rimmed with bright blue, and in the centre a neat pansy mark, while underneath its gills were a bunch of trem- bling crimson feelers. A pail of salt water was brought, and the butterfly-fish secured for general inspection, amid innumerable " ahs ! " and " ohs ! " and craning of necks. Lastly, a young man dropping his line over the stern, felt a most powerful bite at the hook, and with a tug sufficient to have raised a small whale, he exposed to view a couple of red herring ! The line had been caught, and the dried fish attached, by some wags at the port-holes below. The bewilderment of the angler pro- voked general mirth, the laughter even extending to a stiff old gentleman who was on his way to be cured of rheumatism at the Hot Springs of Rotomahana, By this time the tide-signals were in our favour. While we were sailing up the Manukau Harbour, there was pointed out to us a genuine kauri forest. As a general rule, whenever you hear the word " kauri " (kowree) mentioned in these parts, you are to listen with the greatest possible respect, for what the " brave old oak " is to the Englishman, what the big trees of Yosemite are to the Californian, the kauri tree is to the man of Auckland. The grandest of all New Zealand trees, it is frequently 200 feet high and twelve feet in diameter. Kauri is found chiefly in the tapering northern extremity of this North Island, is unknown south of Auckland, and is now dying out very fast, all attempts to plant the young kauri having been so far failures. The grand old giant will one day disappear. We landed at Onehunga, a tasteful-looking village at the head of the harbour, and originally a settlement of military pen- sioners from the old country, several of whom still live about the place. It may be called a distant suburb of Auckland, and 228 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. the Manukau itself the suburban harbour of that city. The island at this point is only eight miles in breadth. Auckland is built on the shores of the Waitemata Harbour, on the eaSt' 1 . coast, and connected by a short railway with Onehunga and the" . other harbour on the west side of the island, so that the city is * wonderfully well off for water communication. A branch of the Manukau runs to within three-quarters of a mile of a river flowing into the Waitemata, and a canal may in the future con- nect the two important harbours. As a train was not to start for some very long time, we engaged a waggonette to take us into town. The drive was very enjoyable, chiefly because the landscape was of a totally new character the grass of an emerald greenness, and the soil a dullish pink. Neat private houses frequently appeared, encircled by fine gardens , very few of them without the graceful cabbage-tree. By-and-by, we came in sight of the outskirts of the city, and at length reached the steep descent of Upper Queen Street, down which we rattled to our hotel. Auckland has the best business site of any town in New Zealand. Queen Street, the principal street, one mile in length, glides down till it merges imperceptibly into the long wharf that stretches from the shore. The Waitemata harbour is large and well land-locked. The triple-peaked Rangitoto, an extinct volcano, with several other islands to the eastward, relieve what there is of monotony in the country round, but they are almost too distant. The country about here is volcanic, and saved from being commonplace by the afore-mentioned emerald grass, and the strange pink soil. The streets are paved with lava stone, the side-walks strewn with scoria, or volcanic ash, which crunches beneath your feet. Mount Eden forms part of the background to Auckland. It is a flat-topped, verdant volcanic hill. Its slopes are ridged with terraces, the remains of Maori earthworks thrown up during old tribal wars. Each successive embankment bears witness to a defence and a retreat, the unlucky besieged having step by step been driven over the summit. Cartloads of Maori bones, the remnants of Maori feasts, have been dug out of Mount Eden in reference to which a man gravely assured us that these were being secretly converted into flour, and that we in turn would unwittingly be committing cannibalism under a milder form ! Though the top of the hill looks flat, yet on climbing up you find yourself on the edge of a very symmetrical crater, like a smooth inverted cone. From the summit you Auckland. 229 command an extensive prospect Your eyes compass the neck of land separating the two oceans you see the many gems of islands studding the Waitemata Harbour, and the larger islands, Ihe Great and Little Barriers, standing to seaward as advanced guards of the approach to Auckland you can faintly distinguish the busy Thames gold field, thirty-five -miles distant you see a great rugged peninsula stretching north, and forming the Coromandel Gulf; while to the south, amid a green country fading into blueness, and extending to a farther cloudland of mountains that seem moulded in mist, you behold the ever- famous valley of the Waikato, the hot-bed of the Maori war. Auckland, as we first saw it, under inclement weather, did not prepossess us in its favour. Under sunnier skies we subsequently found a great deal of charm in the harbour. But the architecture of the city was inferior to what we had expected, though we say this with recollection of some very commanding buildings in Queen Street. However, several destructive fires have lately opened the way for better buildings. Shortly before we arrived there took place the fourth fire within a radius of a quarter of a mile during the last eighteen months. The destruction of the Government offices gave the people an opportunity to boast about the magnitude of their calamity, though the Americans laughed at their " one-horse fire " and said, " You mean well, Auck., but you can't conflagrate worth a cent ! " Going down Queen Street, we caught sight of one of several gutted-out blocks. Children were sprawling amongst the ruins, and a poor man was grubbing about the rubbish with a stick. An orchard at the back had been " devoured " a melancholy sight the trees standing charred and bare, mossed over with soot instead of nature's verdure, withered by a swift fiery autumn. We were amused at the rapidity with which temporary buildings were put up. One day a sheet of fire- rusted iron, on which a placard had stated that " Brown would shortly open," was removed, and carpenters were hammering away at the timbers of a new wooden shop. Next day the corrugated iron was being nailed on the day following, the premises were finished and on the fourth day the place was stocked with groceries, while a man was engaged on the top of a ladder painting the new sign. Several of these burnt-out shops had quite recently been re-opened, one wag, who kept an eating-house, advertising that " like a phoenix he had risen from his hashes ! " The population of Auckland city, inclusive of the suburbs, 230 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. is 21,803, composed largely of English and Irish. The Papal and publican elements are strong. " Sandy " is not so fully represented as he ought to be, though I do not drag this for- ward as a cause of Auckland's backwardness ! Business seemed only moderately prosperous. The labour market was not particularly lively, though many kinds of persons were advertised for among others, female servants, nurse-girls, men-cooks, an elderly female cook for one of the suburbs, and above all, a lady-pianist for Fiji ! while, on the other hand, a young man desired " a situation as warehouseman, groom, gardener, farm-labourer, or any other employment ! " Auck- land is behind the other important provinces in prosperity. Wages are higher both in Otago and Canterbury than here. There is a good deal of poverty in the city proper. Strongly contrasting with this lower stratum of society is the very pro- nounced aristocracy that rules in Auckland. Within a few days, a complimentary ball was given to the Governor by the citizens then a ball by the Governor's servants to the shop- keepers of Auckland then a ball by the shopkeepers to the Governor's servants. No meeting is complete without the patronage of vice-royalty, or some other big man. As usual we met one or two Scotch folks. First, a man who had done well in the world, yet who grumbled sorely. " Man," said he, " this colony is no fit for a Scotsman to live in." " How's that ? " we inquired. " Weel, the fac' is," said he, " I canna get my parritch made to please me ! " We received a letter from old Mrs Nicol, mother of the late Robert Nicol, the celebrated poet of Perth. She is living 100 miles from Auck- land, at Alexandra, in the Waikato district, surrounded by her great-grandchildren seemingly a hale and hearty old lady, though she must be far advanced in years. We spent an evening at the house of an old Scotch lady, a widow, who had arrived at Auckland in 1841. As she truly said, " What times I've seen ! " Her husband and she were tempted to emigrate by the representations of the Great Manukau Company, formed to promote settlement in Auckland. When the vessel left Greenock the captain was drunk, and the passengers strove to reach the Cove of Cork. They fell in with a small brig arriving from Sierra Leone. The skipper of this vessel saved the emigrant ship from total wreck, and afterwards took full command. Then the captain thought he would show off the large ship to his old acquaintances at Sierra Leone. As there were only three ladies in the colony at the time, the emigrants A Successful Eviigrant. 231 were received with acclamation. Balls and suppers were given them they were feted at the Government House, dancing to the stirring united strains of the bagpipes and the fiddle the passengers all this time being kept at a fine hotel. At last the captain, in fear lest he should lose by matrimony some of the fairer portion of his charge, weighed anchor and sailed. By the time they reached the Cape of Good Hope, the ship had to call in for provisions, and a few weeks were spent here. Then they came by degrees to Melbourne, where they stayed five weeks more took a cargo to Hobart Town, where they remained best part of a month reaching Auckland at last to find that the Great Manukau Company had broken up. This influential man had died, this person had failed, this one had absconded. Many of the immigrants got nothing for their outlay. The old lady and her husband, who were to have entered into posses- sion of ^300 worth of land, only received ^80 in scrip. The ship, too, had been eleven months on the voyage, leaving in November 1840, and arriving October 1841. Contrast this with a steamer which has recently made the voyage in forty-two days. At this old lady's house we met a young man, who detailed his colonial experiences. For five years he had worked in a Glasgow counting-house ; but thinking to make a bold stroke for independence, he came out to New Zealand. At first he had to work hard in the bush and wear rough clothes, receiving, as farm-labourer, five shillings a week for the first year, ten shillings a week for the second, and fifteen shil- lings for the third. Then his wages rose to ^i a week for three years, at the end of which time he had saved ,130. He bought 100 acres of land, took a wife, and was now very com- fortable. He was a confirmed teetotaler, and detailed the blight of intemperance which had latterly spread over the settlement where he lived. It was a quiet hamlet till the opening of a " hotel " or grog-shop put an end to all peace. Men became drunk that never were drunk before. Intoxicated Maories staggered through the village many of the poor fellows lay helpless by the roadside. It was a pitiable tale. Everywhere about Auckland we saw Maories not a few here and there, but crowds of them some in the highest degree of respectability, and some in absolute primitiveness. The men were generally dressed in English clothes, with the addition, however, of black felt hats ornamented by straight pheasants' feathers, which gave an Alpine appearance to the head. Others, again, wore chimney-pot hats, which did not 232 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. harmonise in the least with the tattooed faces beneath. The native who had not risen to the supposed dignity of a full suit appeared in a Maori kilt a mat tied round his waist, giving free play to his bare legs and feet with a gay-coloured blanket thrown loosely over the shoulders. The women were in many cases exceedingly showy. A few had on native shawls and mats, with their hair in a most ludicrous state of gigantic bushy frizz, and sticking out from the head like a large-sized mop. Once we saw a fashionable Maori lady, with parasol, flowery bonnet, high-heeled boots, and long train, sweeping her silks down Queen Street. On the opposite pavement squatted another Maori woman squalid, wrapped up in a shabby blanket, and looking in the depth of poverty ; but, in a burst of friendliness, the Silk Dress hurriedly crossed the street and saluted the Blanket, shaking hands with her and rubbing noses in the most affectionate manner. Another time a native woman, who would not have been distinguished on the thronged pave- ment of Princes Street, Edinburgh, save by her brown face, went in a stately way to a cab-stand, hailed a driver with her parasol, gave the man her address, stepped loftily into the vehicle, and sank back into the recesses of the cab. We were astonished at all this. During our whole stay in Auckland we could not help contrasting the native of New Zealand with the aboriginal of Australia. The Australian black is an uncouth fellow, a loafer round country hotels, a grinning play- thing for passing strangers, a kind of human tree soon to be rooted out. But the New Zealand savage is by far superior, physically and mentally, to the Australian aboriginal. Walking down Queen Street, we looked into a photographer's window at a large case filled with pictures of Maori women. While pointing out one or two as being more than usually ugly, we suddenly felt a great pressing behind us, a hard breathing, and an odour of stale tobacco. Squeezing round, we came cheek to cheek with the brown realities of the photographs ! At the foot of the street we reached the wharf, 1700 feet long, which stretches into the harbour. Amongst warehouses, small shipping-offices, and eating-houses for sailors, were frequent congregations of Maories. They were idling about, with flax- baskets in their hands, and had evidently arrived by steamer from the country districts. Heaps of newly-landed vegetables lay on the wharf, watched over by native female eyes. One Maori woman sat on the ground, with a ring of cabbages round her, as if it were an incantation-circle of skulls, and she a A Queer Hotel. 233 market-gardening witch. A goodly number of vessels lay at the wharf among others, the celebrated craft " P. C. E.," which brought the prisoner Rochefort and confreres from New Caledonia to Sydney. This wharf is the promenade of the townsfolks on Sunday afternoons. Hotel accommodation, good or bad as the case may be, has a great deal to do with one's liking or disliking of a town. The house where we put up was not the cleanest or most comfort- able we had ever seen. The presiding genius of the place was an old fossil waiter, whose sole business appeared to be the drawing of corks in the most out-of-the-way of corners. His attendant imps were two or three loafing, slovenly servant girls, who were constantly engaged eating bread and jam surrepti- tiously behind parlour and bedroom doors, and who always answered the call of the old-world waiter with the sound as of a well-crammed mouth. The domestics were always being changed too, and during our stay there were several dynasties of girls. The housekeeper was a young damsel, whose face in the morning was colourless and soapy, her hair hung down to her waist, while she wore a common print dress and a very dirty apron later, she appeared in black, with her hair all padded up and combed in the afternoon a ribbon would creep round the chignon, and colour would settle on the cheeks at night, aha ! she came forth in blue silk dress and dark velvet jacket, with lace collar, lace cuffs, a high convolution on the top of her head, and an immense pink bow over her ear. By these gradual transformations she reached the butterfly climax, but each morning at breakfast she would sink once more into the grub state. We dined in a room where there was a kind of lift, made out of an old flue. The fireplace had folding doors, like a cupboard, and, when these were opened, you would behold your roast coming up on a tray, which was no so6ner removed than, perhaps, a plate of cabbage would fly up the chimney to a corresponding fireplace on the floor above, while at the same time the sepulchral voice of the waiter would very likely be heard calling down for one of his unkempt sprites. It was a most wonderful hotel ! One Sunday there was a terrible storm. A gale blew from morning till night. The rain came with blinding shower. A \\carisome succession of squalls soon made us all anxious to retire to rest. During the night I awoke and found that through leakage of rain and strength of wind, the paper on the ceiling and walls had come down and reduced the size of my 234 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. bed-room to one half. I was like the man tortured by the Inquisition in a gradually-narrowing cell, and felt as if doomed to be smothered in my sleep. One night an open-air mass-meeting was held to protest against an education-tax about to be levied alike on married men and bachelors this gathering being called together at the instigation of persons destitute of olive-branches, and un- favourable, as they said, to paying for the schooling of their neighbours' children. To support this trenchant argument, a noisy rnob of two hundred men and boys clustered round the wooden framework of the fire-bell tower in Queen Street. Each speaker in turn stood on a crossbeam of the structure, and with one arm round a post, hung out over the rabble and poured forth his eloquence. There was very little moon, and the only light came from a very dusty lamp. The orators were all pure Cockneys, and the first we heard on our arrival was dropping his H's like dew " upon the place beneath," exclaim- ing, "Look 'ere, now, if you submit to this poll-tax you'll sub- mit to anythink ! Is the rose, thistle, and shamrock to be trailed in the gutter ? No, no, it ain't and I ain't agoing to pay no tax. They'll take the limbs from my body fust ! What have we come to this country for, eh ? To make a livin' and they won't let us they want to keep us down. Who fills all our suburbs for us, eh ? Why, it's the snob-bobbery that's got rich through corrupting the morals of the folks by sellin' 'em drink. Them's what hought to pay taxes. What did we leave Hingland for, eh ? " " Sit down get out of it ! " shrieked the crowd, and the speaker drew in his head to make way for his successor. This was the chairman, if one might call a person so who stood the whole time on a very uneasy perch. In a light, thin voice he addressed the crowd : " Now, then, gintlemin, what you've got to do is to listen to this. Mr B. has proposed a motion, Mr C. has sicconded it, and now Mr D. is agoing to say somethink." Mr D. was not seen for some time, at which the crowd grew so impatient that a ragged boy, stationed on a high vantage-post, had to call out, by way of explanation " Don't be in a hurry, you folks he's a short man, and they're hysting him up !" The orator, a man of small stature, aided from below by friendly shoulders, scrambled up the trellis-work of the pijjar, and breathlessly began his address " Gentlemen, you're not intending to pay this, are you ? I'll also, with my friend here, be torn limb from limb before I pay it. Britons, Britons A Mass Meeting. 235 I say Britons never shall be slaves. No, the flag won't be pulled in the dust ; I'll die fust ! No, we ain't agoing to stand it. I dont go in for teez-eekal force, but in this case I I'd I'd resist this poll-tax. If you pay this you'll pay hanythink ! " After the brilliant peroration the crowd howled in fearful chorus, one youth in particular making night hideous with his yells hearing which, Mr C. darted from behind Mr D., and, pointing with his finger, eagerly ejaculated, " Never mind that there boy he ain't been heddicated!" This was the acknow- ledged hit of the evening, and was received with cheers and laughter the chairman, in an ecstasy of anxiety to do some- thing, rapping with his cane and shrilly piping out, " Order, gintlemin, order!" Other persons spoke amidst the tumult, a certain man urging loudly "a canvas from 'ouse to 'ouse," but after the great joke of the evening no one was heard with patience. Volleys of hoots and cat-calls were fired off, questions were flung like missiles at the speakers, and, after a concluding explosion of yells, the crowd broke up. It, however, immediately formed into procession, and advanced towards the Provincial Government Buildings, intending to awe the members. But when they arrived, lo ! all was dark, and no one visible, to the intense disgust of the mob, who, after giving their opinion that the people's representatives had hidden themselves under the seats or gone frightened behind the doors, dispersed to their several homes. Thus concluded the great mass meeting, which, if it left us little the wiser as to the merits of the education-tax, at anyrate afforded us some amusement, and gave us an insight into the elements of an Auckland street-crowd. Auckland is 700 miles from Dunedin, the former lying towards the northern, the latter towards the southern, extremity of the New Zealand group. Auckland may flourish in the future as the New Zealand port for the large trade opening up in the islands of the Pacific. The reasons for Auckland's back- wardness, though not so numerous as the causes that led to the American War, or the events that justified the first French Revolution, are quite plentiful enough to account for twice the dulness of the ex-capital of New Zealand. Great damage has been done to the prestige of the province by the Maori war. The land is held in large blocks by speculators. Auckland, too, like the cuckoo, has " no winter in its year." There is a milder season, but none of the sharp, biting weather so healthful to the soil. Auckland is great in imports. It gets potatoes from 236 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. Victoria, flour from Oamaru and Dunedin, cheese and butter from Canterbury and Taranaki, hops and malt from Nelson, salmon from California, wines from Australia, sugar from Hawaii, coals from New South Wales, apples and jam from Hobart Town. A good deal of the soil is volcanic and poor. The city itself has suffered rather severely by the removal of the seat of government to Wellington. The withdrawal of the military after the Maori war was also a cause of depression. Commerce and trade declined. But fortune so willed that life was galvanized into the province. In 1867 there arose a new source of wealth to Auckland at the place we next visited, the great gold field of the Thames. We sailed down the eastern shore of the Firth of Thames a large inlet of the Great Hauraki Gulf, with high forest-crowned hills stretching along, and in the distance, the smoke as of some extensive manufacturing city. Coming closer, a mining- town developed out of the vapours. Not far off, on a slope cleared from trees, we noticed a graveyard. " Ah," said the captain, his conversation acquiring a local colouring " ah, many a poor fellow has pegged out his last claim there." We were conveyed from the wharf to the town by the first railway that ever existed in the North Island. Two small carriages, entered from the end like omnibuses, were drawn by an upright engine fitted into a truck, and the motive-power connected in some unseen manner with its wheels. The small boiler in constant jolt, and its tall rusty funnel in continual quiver, were too much for our gravity, which was by no means increased at seeing a late passenger run after and easily overtake the fiercely-puffing train. There are two towns on " the Thames " Grahamstown and Shortland. The latter, falling off in its prosperity, had to be partially abandoned, and the gold discoveries were prosecuted in other parts of the field. Grahamstown is now the head- quarters of mining vitality. The gold field is very picturesque, lying on flat ground on the shores of a wide bay, with ranges clothed in dense trees rising immediately behind. Wooded heights look down into the streets. The place is a miners' warren. The town, being a gold-town, and a very young one, is irregularly built, and the buildings are mostly of wood. Thin, tall, peaked gables are jammed in between small, squat houses, as if the long line of street had been shunted together, and the weaker structures had shot up collapsed with the pressure. From the window of the hotel we overlooked the Mining at the Tliames. 237 main thoroughfare. A couple of mules, laden with panniers, were conveying bread -and beef to the people up on the hills. Men smoked under every verandah and at every corner. Boys were running along the streets shouting the Evening Star, purchasing which paper we learned some exceedingly startling facts : " The Crown Prince has been showing gold freely the Foresters have just had a crushing the Black Angel is looking up handsomely the Bright Smile procured a good retort on Saturday the Bird in Hand exhibits little sign of exhaustion and the Golden Calf has had its boilers cleaned ! " Finishing the news, we had dinner, which consisted of roast sucking-pig and roast turkey, two very palatable dishes, the first of a series of good things provided at this hotel. Being close to the sea there is not the same difficulty in getting supplies here as in gold fields generally. We went amongst the chimneys and quartz-batteries, along irregular, slimy roads. Crossing high over the streets, and striding down to the sea on lofty timbering like stilts, were long aerial tramways, on which men were engaged pushing tip-trucks of earth, removed from numerous burrows on the hill-sides. At different places mounds of quartz were boxed in from the streets by high wooden walls. In these were long rows of juare holes like the ports of a man-of-war. A cart came ip and backed underneath one of these openings ; the driver Dulled a handle, and an iron slide shot up ; the quartz clattered )ut of the porthole till the stream was cut off by the small iron loor, and then the full cart drove away to the crushing bat- ;ries. We went into one of these latter, the noise making us ,1k in dumb show to the man that conducted us through, and ie vibration benumbing our feet. Upon leaving this abode jf noise noise so deafening as to produce, by its very inten- sity, a kind of silence we were shown into a quiet room, jrhere a most beautiful process was exhibited. The smelter of ie establishment took up a pot, the sides of which were of ton and the bottom of chamois leather. When he put some lalgam of quicksilver and gold into this vessel he screwed on an iron lid with a small hole in the centre of it, into which was introduced a water-pipe. The hydraulic pressure purified the gold by driving the quicksilver through the pores of the chamois leather, the clear metal dripping off at first like infini- tesimally small beads, and latterly, with increased force of water, uniting in one continuous glittering stream. We next went round to the "Great Pump," one of the 238 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. sights of Grahamstown. For some time the water coming into the various claims created great perplexity, and an association was formed to erect this pump at a cost of ^50,000. In this way most of the companies can keep their workings dry. We saw a high building with a huge shaft projecting from it like a battering-ram, and at the extremity of it an immense box filled with stones, this unwieldy arm being the counterpoise to the pumping machinery. The actual suction-gear is enormous, and sinks slowly into the shaft, with a lumbering lazy manner, as if it had half a mind to bring up only a pint or two this time instead of the great wash of water, ten tons a minute, that it wells out far up above, and sends rushing down a trough into the sea. We went to an upper portion of the pump-house, saw the large engine, and felt the strong shudder of the building, the great sigh of the wind, at every fall of the mighty piston. Amongst mud, noise, coal-heaps, Stacks of wood, carts, and office-sheds, we made our way to the " Long Drive," another of the township's "lions." We climbed a hill-side, got to the level of a square-timbered hole, and entered it with an intel- ligent guide. Each of us had a candle, which, however, was not always necessary, as the " drive " is lighted with gas-lamps at intervals of 200 feet. This is a kind of small underground street, 1500 feet long, from right and left of which branch off the different mines. -Ahalong the roof of the tunnel were glow-worms, with bright purple heads, clusters of them shining above us like twinkling stars. Our sight-seeing ended in the specimen-room of the richest claim at present on the Thames, where we were received by a person in an old dirt-spotted coat, rough trousers, and an inelegant hat. This man was one of ^hree who owned the claim, now valued at ^300,000. He had ^20,000 in the bank, ready cash, and a prospective ^100,000 in the mine. A few years ago he was a poor butcher boy. We afterwards met the other two members of this rich trio, but these lords of thousands were all equally unpreten- tious. A fellow lounging on a verandah-post, with a pipe hanging loosely in his teeth, and rubbing tobacco between his hands, looking as if he were in receipt of five shillings a day, had literally -i 20 a week as dividends on mining shares. The gentleman who kindly acted to us as cicerone had himself been offered ^16.000 for his interest in a claim. We felt ourselves in a community of disguised Rothschilds. Gold has been found in this neighbourhood since 1852, but nothing permanent till 1867, when the Superintendent of A Maori Debauch. 239 Auckland offered a reward of ^5000 for a payable gold field, and the Thames Diggings sprang into existence. The gold field was very prosperous, the yield in 1867 being ^20,700, the second year ^168,874, rising in 1871 to ^1,188,708. There has been something of a falling off since then, the monthly return being now 10,000 ounces, an ounce to every person at present on the gold field. We walked one day to Shortland, the decayed half of the gold field. When we reached the end of the long street, we witnessed an interesting but pitiful spectacle. A crowd of Maories were huddled closely round the front of a public-house, and a large number were drinking in the bar. What talking, giggling, shouting, reeling, and furious language ! What a bright display of ornamental tattoo, striped shawls, coloured mats, and gay head-gear ! Some of the men had on long graceful robes of feathers, some of the women were dressed in tartan, some of the youngsters were simply clad in epidermis. One woman, in Rob Roy tartan petticoats, and looking like Helen Macgregor after a prolonged sojourn in the tropics, was grimly wheeling a perambulator, containing a dark- skinned baby, backward and forward in front of a row of befuddled Maories sitting on their hunkers, with their chins between their knees, smoking vigorously and enjoying the per- formance. Roars and growls came 'from the interior of the public-house, where three white men with tucked-up sleeves were hard at work behind the counter serving out grog to a noisy press of elbowing and pushing natives, who were rapidly becoming intoxicated; while from a back part of the bar came a melancholy chaunt, sung by a knot of big-jawed women, any one of whom might have sat for the picture .of a Fury. Staggering across the street, with the mud oozing up between his toes, came a grand old chief, his hair fast silvering, a long feather stuck in his head, and a rich-coloured mantle over his shoulders. He was very drunk, but managed to get into the public-house, from whence he re-appeared stamping, smiting his hands, and striding about in a fearful passion, his wife and child plucking feebly at his cloak to calm his feelings. Another chief, with a short clay pipe in his mouth, darted out, dragged the white-haired old man tottering into the bar, and we never saw him again. The street all the while resounded with shouts and yells, dozens of the savages gather- ing together in wild debate, and in the midst of the confusion a white man, who seemed a stockbroker, and was not quite 240 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. sober, came up to us familiarly, saying that he and some of his friends were taking this favourable opportunity to " worm some land out of the Maories ! " The law says that no drink shall be sold to the Maories. Yet within hail of the public-house was a police-office, so the whole affair took place under the immediate eye of the law, which on this occasion must have been winking. Some of the Maories were Hau-Haus, or unfriendly natives, who still hold themselves aloof from the white man, who will not sell their land, and who are permitted to come into the towns that they may see and experience some of the benefits arising from being friendly to the Government. Most of the Maories we saw owned land in the neighbourhood. The Thames gold field belongs to them. Each miner pays a " miner's right," and most of this goes to the Maories, who, as we have seen, generously spend the money in the public- houses. A short time previously, owing to the increase of the timber-trade, a saw-mill and bush were bought from the Thames natives for ^16,000. This handling of large sums by the Maories alone would render them the most unique of savages. The natives and the miners are the moneyed classes of the dis- trict, as the store-keepers well know. The Maories have great reverence for law. They will not interfere with a policeman who takes away one of their number, but if a private individual assist, they assault him as a non-official. They have also great respect for anything Caledonian. When the Thames Scottish Volunteers parade the town, the Maories feel it their duty to tie blankets round their waists like kilts, and come out as Highland as any man in the procession ! Our grandest view of the quartz mines was obtained by a walk up the Waiotahi Gully. We passed on the way a small village of cottages on a kind of retiring shelf or recess off from the town. Other houses stood on the brink of precipitous red cuttings. You could imagine a man saying to his wife : " I expect Jones to haul himself up to tea with us to-night !" or, " I'm going to drop sheer down to a friend's at supper-time ! " Standing on one slope of the deep valley, along the bottom of which flowed a tortuous rivulet of a tramway, we looked across at an amazing extent .of mines. The wide scarified hill-face was lined with battlements of quartz, ribbed with long trailing red paths, and spread over with a distracting variety of huts, water-races, and long wooden shoots, down which every few moments clattered a rush of quartz. Jets of red earth poured Society on a Gold Field. 241 from tunnel-holes. Blue, white, and slate-coloured cata- racts of mineral rolled down from terrace to terrace of the mines, one stream continuing where the other had left off, like the breaks in a mountain torrent Away down below rushed the creek in the gully, in its own natural bed, or brawling over some rubbish from the mines. Here also were the crushing-sheds, like railway termini, with a sound of trains continually starting inside but never appearing. Above the boom of these batteries we could hear the clear voices of the children, in the school across the gully, saying over in chorus their morning lesson. Close by, several men were crawling in and out of holes, shovelling seething masses of shingle down the hill-side, and men were digging amongst the few bushes and trees now left in the gully. Old, deserted, grass-grown tunnels were boarded up, like family vaults. Cottages were thickly scattered about, one of them half clothing itself with ivy in a vain attempt to be rural amid such a surrounding wreck of nature. Besides all these immediate shafts, tunnellings, and claims, there were mines lying far up amongst the mysterious dark bush on the mountains, and often concealed by the driving, low-hanging mists that scoured along the ridges. Our feet lingered about the place, principally owing to the pasty nature of the road ; but after a glutinous journey of a mile and a half, we were again in Grahamstown. The Thames is a very respectable mining district. The people are free-and-easy, as on most gold fields ; but there is a staidness and a settled feeling generated by the sure character of the quartz reefs. There is no grade or rank, as we at home might know it. The bank managers and bank clerks go about in light tweeds and elegant neckties, but they are most courteous to the rough fellows from the mines. Not that these are all rough, for we met many gentlemanly persons, who treated mining as a scientific question. The clergyman goes his rounds amongst them with no clerical airs, and perhaps has a bit, just a little tiny bit of interest in the mines, and is thought none the worse for the fact. Every man smokes every man talks gold. The very minister on Sunday, in his sermon, either by chance or as a striking application, used gold as one of his similes ; just as, on the Sandhurst gold field, we heard a clergyman refer to deposits in the sure bank above, and urge his hearers to take shares in the great gospel " claim." The church we were in at the Thames had a good congregation, composed very largely of men. The minister was formerly of Q 242 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. Scone, a few miles from the fair city of Perth. He came out to a charge in Auckland, but left it for the Thames on account of ill health. When the great gold-rush took place, it brought him nearly all his old congregation from Auckland ! So here he is, with a fine church and a snug manse, in which latter we received a kindly welcome. As at Auckland, a violent storm blew here on the Sunday evening. At the back of the hotel, the sea roared over the wide flat of the bay and raged against our landlord's long wharf. A small vessel rapidly dragged her anchor and came crashing upon the pier timbers, knocking out the piles on the opposite side like broken teeth. The craft butted and plunged, increasing the damage, which was heard in the dusk by the crashing of the woodwork rain and mist now and then obscuring the scene of destruction till at length, despite all the heroic efforts of the landlord and a company of men, the vessel made a clean breach through the wharf, and, drifting along, grounded on the flat near the shore. A side wharf was lifted bodily by a wave and tilted broadside against the other at the same time a portion of the rear of the hotel was washed away while during the night three other rents were made in the wharf by as many drifting vessels. Next morning the storm abated. In the evening we were to return to Auckland. On reaching the steamboat wharf we found that it had also been broken through by the storm, and that the passengers would have to be con- veyed to the steamer in boats ; and as these could not come close inshore, we had to have ourselves and luggage with great difficulty driven out into the surf by spring-carts. CHAPTER XVIII. THE WAIKATO VALLEY RANGARIRI BATTLE-FIELD A MILITARY OUTPOST A WEARY HORSE-RIDE A NIGHT IN A MAORI HOUSE. FROM Auckland, " Tom," my two brothers, and I started on a romantic journey through the interior of the island, while the rest of our folks went by sea to Napier, a sail of over 500 miles round the east coast in a little steamer. We four young men travelled overland to the same place, passing through the volcanic country of this North Island, with its hot lakes, geysers, and terraces wonders so great as to call for the pen of a Munchausen, if, indeed, they might not have disgusted that worthy, seeing they would have precluded the necessity for in- vention ! The first section of our trip lay through the YVaikato district. I know of nothing so uncomfortable as rising in the dark of early morning to go upon a coach-ride to leave a snug warm bed, to see the gas-lamps shining dimly into your room and shedding the cheerless shadow of the window frame upon the ceiling to hear the far-off crowing of a cock to creep into the gloomy, cold, echoing streets in short, to be utterly miser- able, as we were on this especial occasion. The four-horse coach toiled up Queen Street, and reaching the outskirts of the city, sped along a level road into the country. The passengers were not very talkative at first, for all seemed awakened out of sound sleeps. They all lit cigars, however, and soon a young man, full of knowledge of Maori customs, commenced telling the coach generally, how at a late meeting he saw a race between two natives war-canoes, with two hundred warriors in each. This was denied, as absurd, in most extravagant terms by a gentleman who sat behind he declaring that eighty persons was the limit of accommodation of any Maori craft, and that he wondered how people would persist in spreading ridiculous statements about the poor savages. Sociableness now received a severe blow, every piece of information that the young man hatched being pounced upon by this conversational hawk. Daylight soon began to appear. In time the hills were suf- 244 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. fused with red the hedges lost the blue mists and sprang into greenness the windows of Otahuhu township, far distant across the Manukau harbour, shone as if in royal illumination. The sky was covered with gradated colours, blocks of white-peaked clouds stood on the glowing horizon like icebergs on a pink sea. The country, as it began to show up, proved to be rather dull. The ground was littered with lava stones like petrified sponges, some of them covered with a dry white moss. There was no grass to be seen either, nothing but brown and dirty-green fern- covered country, fenced in with walls of the volcanic stone. One peculiarity of this part of New Zealand is, that there is no grass bushes and ferns have full occupation of the soil. The landscape would be common in the extreme, when a grass-tree would step in with its graceful outline against the sky, saying, " There ! " and the whole country would be transformed at once into a foreign-looking scene. At Drury we had breakfast and a change of driver, the reins being now handled by a jolly, red-faced Nova Scotian. We passed a caravan of new arrivals going up-country the women and children in waggons, the men trudging alongside and trying to look as hopeful as possible in the rain, which was now falling heavily. At Point Russel, or Mercer, we first beheld the Waikato, a noble-looking river, familiar as a household word by its association with the Maori wars. Its banks were thickly fringed with flax, and packed closely with bright green grass- trees. While we stood at the river-side a canoe came paddling across. Three Maories were in it, one of them with a red sash over his shoulder and a white scarf tied round his head a picturesque sight, and one that seemed intended for effect. A number of natives crouched under the verandah of the hotel here, and some of our fellow-passengers aired their stock of Maori phrases. Being near the scenes of the war, we looked about for trophies, but only saw the old turret of a gun-boat, now used as a police lock-up. Five horses were harnessed to the coach, and we proceeded on our journey. The wheels hissed through pools of water, guttered through lumpy mud, and bumped in awkward holes. It was a most dreary performance a long solo of yells by the driver, supported by a running accompaniment of horse-hoofs and the jangling of swingle-bars, conducted by a vigorous beat- ing with a stout whip. The scenery was very fine in respect to the vegetation, which was more luxuriant than down Otago way. On one hand the river-side was occupied by a jostling A Maori Battle-Field. 245 confusion of brilliant green plants and a wealth of tall reeds, amongst which lay here and' there canoes with high perpen- dicular prows on the other, we had dense manuka scrub, out of which waved the long fronds of the high fern-trees. We came to a series of steep, muddy hills. While going up one of these, there was a sudden stoppage, a hard kick, a loud crack, and away went the three leaders, dragging the reins out of the driver's hands. The coach, with the two remaining horses, gradually commenced slipping back, while the runaway steeds swept up and over the hill, waving their tails in triumph. " After them, head them ! " cried the driver to the passengers, who had all scrambled out at the first sound of danger, and oft we plunged along the hill-side, up to the shoulders in damp, tangled fern every now and then one of us tripping up and melting out of sight like a snowflake amongst the billowy .expanse of bracken. After getting wet through, and losing a large amount of patience, we caught the horses down in a gully, on the edge of a small precipice, which had brought them to. The harness was repaired after some little delay, and about an hour afterwards we were rapidly approaching Rangariri, the scene of one of the fiercest conflicts in the New Zealand war. We passed the rifle-pits and trenches of the Maories, but were not in the least impressed with the idea of a battle-field. On seeing the small earthen grass-grown fortifications, we thought the fight must have been utterly child's-play. But now there is a road where there was then no road, no bush where there was bush, so that we could not realise the full details of the struggle. The Maories had possession of two pahs, from which they were not dislodged till two hundred men fell, both sides inclusive. The natives were shelled and fired at from the gunboats on the river, and were assailed also from a strong redoubt, into the remains of which earthwork we climbed on arriving at Rangariri. Its sod parapets and embrasures could never have been very strong. The redoubt, when we saw it, was occupied in one corner by a Maori whare ("wharry") or hut; while at the bottom of the slope stood a blacksmith's shop, the smoke of which, escaping from every pore of the thatched roof, wreathed itself in peaceful curls round the sides of the fortification. Add a little hotel and one or two cottages, and you have the whole of Rangariri. During the afternoon we passed a group of armed navvies men who are supposed to join themselves to the constabulary in case of an outbreak, and who were at the moment engaged 246 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. making the great Waikato railway, which will do more to settle the native difficulties than troops of soldiers. We came also upon an encampment of the native contingency Maories who are enrolled as militia, who get six shillings a day, and who do apparently very little for the money, though the fellows cer- tainly looked smart in their foraging caps and steel-buttoned jackets. All this employment of the natives is a sop to the great Maori Cerberus. Flour and blankets are also liberally distributed amongst the natives. The Government, as the saying is, " would rather feed the Maories than fight them." Night set in, and we rumbled alongside the Waikato for the most part of the way, the river shining clear with the reflection of the now star-lit sky, and contrasting with the solid black range running along the opposite shore. In front, the manuka bushes, like grey wraiths lit up by the strong lamps of the coach, glided past into the gloom. With a terrible amount of jolting and splashing we reached Ngaruawahia, which word is the shib- boleth of all those who aspire to be Maori scholars. Here we were conveyed across the Waikato on a large punt, worked along a chain by two quarrelsome Irishmen, who at certain intervals dropped the handles of the winding gear and broke out into wild abuse of each other, but who on reaching the shore went off together to have a drink. This is the largest town of the Waikato, and will be a place of no small import- ance when the railway reaches it. Our journey was not to end here, for we had a dreary ride of some miles more, through continuous water, reaching Hamilton, another township, where we spent the night. Next morning, after the usual bush-breakfast of sharp-edged coffee, mealy bread, and thick steak underlying a deposit of onions, we drove in a waggonette to Cambridge, which lies 100 miles south-east of Auckland, and is the farthest outpost of civilisation in this Waikato Valley. Two hotels, several new stores, and a few houses compose the township. A body of constabulary, a semi-military force, is here. Their redoubt, or camp, visible on the top of a hill ten miles distant, had to us a great deal of interest. It lies on the confines of the King country, the region of the disaffected Maories, and overlooks the spot where, a year or two ago, a white man employed on a sheep-station was killed by the natives in revenge for some land grievance. As the tribe would not deliver up the murderers, the affair was likely to lead to fresh hostilities, but the ominous cloud somehow or other blew over, to the intense A Military Outpost. 247 relief of the Waikato settlers. Sir James Ferguson, the Governor, lately paid a visit to the friendly tribes of this region. He took a dignified position, and did not go near the Kingites or the rebel Hau-Haus. At Ngaruawahia, where is the confluence of the Waipa and Waikato rivers, he was received enthusiastically, and spoken to volubly by the assembled chiefs. " Welcome, Governor," said Major Te Wheoro, " let the union of the two races be as the meeting of these rivers." " O come ! " said Mohi te Rangiora, " may God guide you in your administration. Welcome, our guardian parent, to your country." "I am rejoiced to meet you," said Sir James, "but I am sorry to see the division existing between you " (alluding to the rebel tribes). " If your absent brethren prefer their isolation, we do not seek to drag them from it. When the earthquake splits the ground, the parts do not come together in a day. But as surely as the great Waikato flows to the sea, so surely will civilisation and Christianity spread and be extended over this land, and over all the world. It is better for us to live on its banks, and to be benefited by it, than to be swept away before it." This speech was received with cheers, and the Governor was supposed to have made a happy use of Maori metaphor in the peroration. As I write this, I see by New Zealand papers that Sir Donald M'Lean, the native Minister, has had an interview with the rebel tribes, so that an important step has been taken towards a reconciliation between the Government and the Kingites. The little village of Cambridge was lively with troopers, native constabulary with jaunty caps, settlers with whips and spurs, and tattooed Maories. At dinner I sat opposite an old grisly Maori, who had weighty greenstone pendants dragging down the lobes of his ears. On my right were two troopers, while a drunken fellow, feebly dropping his hands each side his chair, leaned his head on my left shoulder. On the other side of the table were two surveyors, the local doctor, and an Irish guide to the Hot Lakes, who spoke the Maori tongue with a rich brogue. We told him our route, and asked if he knew our first stage, Te Whetu. "Tay Fettoo!" he exclaimed " troth an' I do know that place, for during the war I was captured there as a spy by the Moreys, and the brown daymons tied me to a tree to burn me; but the flax broke that they fastened me with, so I got away, gintlemin, an' that's how I rimimber Tey Fettoo ! " We thought this an excellent item for Mayne Reid, and quite equal to Letts's Diary as a means of recollection ! 248 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. All the afternoon, Maori drank the health of Maori, and settler took "nobbier" with settler. At night, in the hotel parlour, cards were played under the supervision of an old Maori, who had been imbibing too freely, but who was very expert in euchre. At the other end of the room a young gentleman played on the piano the Shadow Dance from "Dinorah." Then a major, with a deep bass voice, sang, " I'll always think of thee ! " at which several Maories cried " Kapai " (good), to the great delight of the vocalist. Next a captain sang, then another officer, then some of the constabulary who sat round the wall the applause being kept up by a lot of fellows over tumblers of punch. They were all making merry, when a "swell" with a comically paralytic eye-glass twitch in his left cheek, ejaculated: "Doocit you know, give us, you at the piano ah a song with chorus, perhaps say the Miserere from Trovatore, and I'll join in!" "Yes!" said a man, raising his head sleepily off the table, "yes, we'll all join in give us the Miseries ! darn it, but a like a chorus ! give us something with a chorus ! " The pianist immediately broke forth into a comic song, which was refrained loudly by everybody within ear-shot, the Maories swinging their arms quite enthusiastically over it. During the height of this, the cook, a red-headed and red- whiskered Highlander, put his head into the room and beckoned us out to a large armful of sandwiches, asking if these would be sufficient for our desolate journey on the morrow. We had previously made arrangements with a worthy captain to guide us to the Hot Lakes, and have the horses ready to start early in the morning. Our plan was to leave about seven or eight o'clock, but this idea was the cause of great mirth to the landlord and his lady. No other " gents " had ever left before dinner some " gents " started late in the afternoon never had " gents " taken their departure so hastily. Numerous were the bets made that we would not leave before eleven. We went betimes to bed, just as a bugle-blast announced the change of sentry on the bridge that crossed a neighbouring gully, and fell asleep to a lullaby .of distant operatic airs half- drowned in revelry. Thus concluded our experiences in Cam- bridge, the advanced sentinel-town, the sensitive antennae of the Waikato Valley, where a good deal of unsettled feeling exists, hidden over by routine and an outward show of security, and where the slightest indication of Maori disturbance would send an instantaneous thrill throughout New Zealand. Our faces were turned at last towards Ohinemutu, the native A Laughable Cavalcade. 249 village in the Hot Lake district, and to reach which was a two days' journey of no slight difficulty. Behold us, at nine o'clock in the morning, leaving Cambridge, to the astonishment of every settler, Maori, trooper, and storekeeper thereof, utterly upsetting all the prophecies against an early start, and riding off in the most laughable of processions. First, the guide, cantering ahead in short jacket and gaiters, dragging after him the grey pack-horse, which wobbled along under its load of tent-canvas, rugs, provisions, bags of oats, and tin-cans, with all the gait and appearance of a dromedary. Then we four adventurers in Indian file, each in his roughest clothes, mounted on the shaggiest of small " scrubbers," with a pannikin and a coil of rope dangling behind him at his saddle-bow. Away we went, past the township past the armed sentry on the bridge past the last sign of civilisation we were to see for two days then on into the wildness of the unsettled country. With mad cantering and galloping we sped along anon giving a blow to the pack-horse as it hung lazily behind wildly careering on a bridle track, a thread of a path, at the very most only eighteen inches wide, and our only riding-ground for eighty-five miles. No coach-road had ever traversed this part of the island no vehicle of any sort had ever disturbed the primitive- ness of nature with a wheel-mark. What cared we that the scenery was a dull extent of grassy undulations, or that miles of hard riding lay before us ! The brightest of glassy blue skies shone overhead, and our hearts beat high with the excitement and novelty of the situation. On we went, now. startling occasional pheasants, now breaking the silence with a song, to the accompanying music of rattling cans and panni- kins. By-and-by came a broad swamp, a sheet of water covered with dense flax as high as a man on horseback, through which we plunged and splashed, with the blades of the flax flapping noisily behind us hearing, but seldom seeing each other, and, after a long time, emerging at the other side of the marshy plain. Here we were accosted by a Maori dressed with a blanket round his waist, who urgently invited us to rest at his hut, and who seemed disappointed when we had to refuse, owing to the length of our journey. Shortly after there over- took us two other Maories on horseback one of them a young man, with a shawl over his shoulders and a foraging-cap set sideways on his head, crouching in the saddle, with bent back, hollow eyes, and a hectic flush on his dark cheek very ill, as 250 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. he told our guide, and on the way to his native village to die. The captain said that Maories have not much pluck when in bad health, and soon surrender themselves to an ailment. After a few miles, the sick man and his companion disappeared behind some rising ground. A lengthy ride, with nothing to see but grey swelling hills, one after the other standing against the deep blue of the sky, brought us to wild, broken country. A grand limestone gorge lay beneath us, the precipitous side of which we descended by dragging our horses after us, a process repeated many times and at more risky places. Here we scrambled down a slippery descent, each one followed by rattling stones dislodged by his horse's hoofs, and every now and then literally embraced from behind by the struggling animal's fore-legs. To see the pack- horse sliding down alone, sitting on its hunkers, with its front hoofs planted between its outspread hind-legs, its neck stretch- ing out, the load of bundles swaying and jerking the poor animal from side to side of the descent, might have drawn laughter from a stone. Crawling down, we arrived at the bottom of an immense cleft, with an amphitheatre of white cliffs circling round us, and our eyes were overpowered by the glare that shone from the reflected sunlight on the heights above. Winding for some distance along this wall-enclosed, high- ridged basin, we dragged our horses out of it by another abrupt path. The country had at one time been a clear expanse of table-land, but by some convulsion of nature had been rent at many places into long fissures. So our journey lay alternately over miles of this table-land and through many of these deep chasms, which latter, being below the level of the general country, were invariably reached from the upper ground by steep rocky tracks. About half-past one, after we had accomplished thirty miles, with bodies inexpressibly sore, with horses sweating and fagged, we heard the pleasant music of a creek, and right glad were we to camp. The horses were tethered by fastening the ropes round the base of a flax-bush. Then we poured out the oats into our greatcoats, which we had spread on the ground as a table-cloth for our hungry chargers. Our guide, who super- intended the cooking, tore up a few handfuls of dry fern, gathered some light wood, and soon had a good fire burning. Then, getting two forked sticks, and placing one each side of the fire, he rested another branch across these, and on it he hung our " billy " or tin can. Unloading the pack-horse, we A Desolate Ride. 251 found that the sugar had mixed itself with the tea, and this put us in a great quandary, till we solved the difficulty, or rather dissolved it, by putting the unlucky mixture in one mass into the can ! When we had finished our sandwiches, and had seen, by the horses burrowing into the sleeves and pockets of our greatcoats, that the oats had been consumed, we made ready very reluctantly for a start. From head to toe every muscle in our bodies was sore and stiff, and motion of any sort, to say nothing of the painfully hard jog-trot of our jaded, foot-sore horses, was many removes from a joke. But twenty miles more had to be overcome, and so we struggled on. The Waikato, now a small stream, flowed on our right, with every mile or so a little foaming fall. The landscape had quite a military look, what with the broken embattled heights of the table-land, with lower down a mound here, a parapet there, and the river running like a moat at the base of the high natural ramparts. No sign of man or beast no house, hut, fence, or encampment not even the flight of a bird across the blue sky, broke the weary solitudes. As the sun set, lengthening out our shadows up the rising hill-slopes before us, and casting the quaint shadows of peaks, crags, and fragments of rock, we thought ourselves in as lonely a part of the earth's surface as could well be conceived. Fields of dirty-grey manuka scrub, averaging five feet in height, stretched before us the blighted, sad-looking bushes overlapping rhe small tapering path, the horses breasting it like a sea, ploughing their way through, and the scrub falling over again like water after we had gone, completely concealing our track. As the horses rushed through this, our feet incessantly caught in the tough branches of the manuka, our knees were wrenched almost to dislocation, the stirrups were dragged up to our ankles, and the continual striving to regain our footing was no small item in our discomfort. As one by one we escaped from these long thickets of scrub, each compassionated the other's injuries, compared notes on the probabilities of their re- spective horses carrying them farther, and burst into cheering prophecies of a speedy end to all this toil. When night set in we laid the bridles on the horses' necks, letting the animals follow each other and smell out the track as best they could. The darkness was not so intense when we were creeping over the brow of a hill, but down on the lower ground you could not see the hand before your face. Up and down, round and about, we dashed, despairing of shelter that night. Sudden 252 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. ascents and descents, unexpected jumps, bogs, and stumbles, kept us continually on the alert. At one time the horses would rush down a steep gully which seemed like the earth sinking beneath you next moment, ere you could recover your- self, a sharp rise would fling you violently upon the horse's neck ; and then, with both feet out of the stirrups, and the bridle dangling somewhere out of reach, you would be help- lessly carried off in a rapid canter. Racked with artificial rheumatics, our knees almost refusing to hold us in the saddle, and each of us be- ginning to look upon the other as the dark phantoms of a troubled dream, we cork-screwed along on our wind- ing way. Never, even for three consecutive yards, did that little rut of a track keep straight. From side to side we were swung continuously, as we pushed on blindly through flax and scrub. The poor horses tore along ow without any flogg- ing, but their very liveliness seemed to have a touch of despera- tion about it. At times the party straggled out into a long line so at intervals a halt was made till the whole of us had closed up, and then "Canter!" was the cry passed along to the rear. Riding along in this way, the form of our guide, or rather the misty outlines of his white mackintosh, would swell up before us like the figure of a magic-lantern, and we would know the captain had luckily paused on the edge of some dangerous declivity. Then off we would thud and scamper again, with only the sound of the horses' hard breathing, and a voice occasionally calling out for company's sake. Suddenly, as if to signalise our arrival at the precincts of Maori-Land, there shot across the heavens a most brilliant meteor a dullish red streak at first, that budded out into a clear blue flame, and vanished in a thin shred of light. Weary and worn we arrived at the little hamlet of " Te Whetu," which name in English means "A Star." We drew up at a large wooden building with an immense expanse of roof, and a fenced-in porch sunk into the gable. We saw aftenvards that it had a very picturesque exterior a broad front, with a verandah overhung with heavy eaves, which latter sloped down to within three feet of the ground, and were elaborately carved with all manner of ornament while, before the door, at a short distance, rose a long slanting pole surmounted by a nob like a flag-staff. The building was formerly a Runanga, or meeting-house of the Hau-Hau rebels, but since the war had been occupied by chance parties of A Night in a Maori house. 253 Maories. A gleam of firelight came through the chinks of the door. The guide, dismounting, commenced to parley with those inside, shouting " Pakeha ! " (white man or stranger), and receiving a reply in a harsh female voice of " Tena koe ! " or " Salutations to you." Then after long silence, undisturbed save by the moaning of the wind amongst the trees, the door, a heavy sliding panel of wood, was pushed to one side, and an interior disclosed, no whit less striking than that which greeted the eyes of Nicol Jarvie at the Clachan of Aberfoyle. We stepped over the low fence and went inside. A fire was burning on the earthen floor, and dimly lighting the farther recesses of the spacious building, the roof of which, one heavy canopy of smoke, was supported like ^a tent by a stout centre- pole. The middle-aged Maori woman who had admitted us was renewing the fire. In a far corner of the building, in a smoky twilight, crouched a miserable specimen of humanity an ancient woman, over one hundred years of age, as we were ungal- lantly told a tattooed wrinkled wife, with grisly locks and a face as dry and immobile as if carved out of weather-beaten wood. She was huddled up like a bundle of rags, and muttered inco- herently to herself. Two little boys, each with a blanket gathered loosely round him, went out into the cold night air, and saw to the safe custody of the horses. They came back with chattering teeth and joined us round the fire, and were highly delighted with the present of some peppermint lozenges. A visitor now looked in to see us a cheery-faced Maori woman, the mother of the two boys. These three were the only residents of the adjoining hamlet, which consisted of half- a-dozen rickety huts. The woman came in with a large tin dish of steaming potatoes, and after the usual manner of neigh- bour women, proceeded to help her friend in her stress of household work a " touch of nature " that was very refreshing, and made us almost forget we were in presence of two uncivi- lised matrons in the wilds of New Zealand. We had the potatoes to our tea. During our rough-and-ready meal the two women sat tittering, nudging, and comparing notes on the pakehas, to the great amusement of our guide, who burst into a hearty laugh, in which he was soon joined by the two women and the boys and there was the strange spectacle of four sober-faced young men calmly sipping tea amid loud merriment and jocular remarks in an unknown tongue. The fun roused the old beldame in the corner, who had been silent for a long time, but who now broke out into a long, rambling speech, 254 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. principally, as the captain informed us, of events that happened long ago. After a short conversation with the women, through the medium of the guide, we made preparations for rest. The visitor, along with her two boys, said good-night and left, and our hostess stretched herself out on one side of the fire. We all took up quarters on the other side, in semi-circle, with our feet converging towards the centre of heat laying our- selves out in our greatcoats on the hard earthen floor, which was covered over with thin flax matting resting our heads be- tween the flaps of our saddles, and making a counterpane of the tent-canvas, now in use for the first and only time on our journey. Though the hovel was filled with pungent smoke, and the old wife talked incessantly, we soon fell asleep. We awoke several times during the night, at one time finding the fire almost out, and the woman leaning upon her elbow, with her face down amongst the ashes, blowing on the feeble embers the intermittent glow lighting up her harsh features like a red mask against the darkness behind, and casting her shadow over the dim high roof. About four in the morning we awoke, partially refreshed, our heads aching a little from our hard pillows, and gathered round the fire. The aged woman was still heaped up in the corner, still raking up long-buried associations, while our hostess was busy preparing another meal of potatoes, assisted by the other woman and the boys, who had again paid us a visit. While we were at breakfast, one of the women engaged herself in making a flax-mat, as civilised ladies spend the passing hour in embroidery the green flax being cut and its fibre scraped with a half-shell, and the strips dexterously plaited. Then the boys tripped round with the horses, and we saddled up for our next stage, a journey of thirty-five miles. We took farewell of the two women, who had been so kind to us also of the grim old woman in the corner, who took no notice of us whatever, but mumbled more historical remarks also of the two boys, so smart and cheerful, who came to the door and smiled and waved their hands as we rode off. The morning was fresh, the sky still an unflecked blue, the country lonely as ever. After leaving the big picturesque runanga, round which a dozen or so of black hogs were feeding, and the little settlement of Maori huts fronted by the long stretch of bush, we saw very little life. Nothing but nature in the raw. The scenery was of utter wildness, and perfectly original in its way. One could imagine himself in some other Euclid Valley. 255 planet, so unlike was the landscape to anything ever seen before. For instance, ^fter descending a long rocky staircase, so narrow that each had to dismount to allow his horse room, the rider's legs being just that too much for the width of the passage, we landed in a plain encompassed by the most eccen- tric hills some of them square-topped, some of them with two or three peaks, some of them cone-shaped while from the centre of the level rose, without any gradual slope, a perfect pyramid of a hill, its sides as regular as if they had been built of masonry and then turfed over. The contrast between this triangular hill and the mathematically-exact square ridges was very queer. No doubt in time the place will be called Euclid Valley. As usual we had to get up again to the table-land by an almost perpendicular climb. With great exertion we dragged our horses two-thirds of the way up, but near the top what was our dismay to find the track skirting the brink of a yawning descent, and immediately above us an immense smooth boulder, over which we had to climb. Each horse in turn planted its front hoofs on the stone, struggled with its hind legs, ducked its neck, gave itself a violent heave forward, and landed nervously on the summit. " Thank your stars you're over that !" said the captain "often and often have tourists wanted to turn back here." We cantered some miles over flat country, and then began a long descent into the Horo Hoio Gorge a grand, wild valley, with a castellated rock standing in the centre of it, a hill sur- mounted by reddish walls or battlements ; and in the back- ground the wonderful Horo Horo Mountain, a shaggy, hirsute range or table-mountain clothed with timber, and a prominent object in the landscape. We camped under the shadow of its wooded heights, and were presently joined by a Maori, who took lunch with us at the side of the creek. Then, after the now familar routine of coiling up tether-ropes, putting on saddles and bridles, and loading the pack-horse, we resumed our journey. The Maori showed his horsemanship by galloping, and at the same time skilfully plaiting a flax thong for his whip the feat being all the more wonderful as the horse was bare- backed. The natives are most unmerciful to their horses when on a journey, always exacting a high rate of speed, and generally use up three horses to every white man's one. Our pack-horse, which had broken loose, made a bolt over the country, pursued by the guide, who had a long steeplechase before he brought the beast back. 256 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. So on the afternoon sped, our guide entertaining us with his wondrous adventures in the Maori war. Once we came upon a clump of burning huts, the captain, with a twinkle in his eye, saying this was the peculiar way the natives had of " moving." Occasionally the Maories desert their villages ; for, as we had seen at Te Whetu, the settlements are situated near wood and water, and when these are exhausted the natives move off. Just about that time known in civilised parts as " tea-time " alas ! every meal with us was tea-time we struck the main coach-road that runs through the island what an elbow-room of road it looked after the slim track we had just left ! and the horses, getting abreast for the first time, became emulous and frisky, and broke into an inspiring gallop. In the dusk of evening we came into the vicinity of Ohinemutu saw Lake Rotorua, on which the village is situated, reflecting the last rays of daylight, and the country round dotted with little balloons of steam slowly rising and marking the presence of the geysers and hot springs. Then, after a lengthy ride in the dark through dense manuka scrub, with sulphureous smells and bubbling sounds of boiling mud-holes that lurked on either hand, we came to a slight rise, and saw dimly beneath us the huts of Ohinemutu. CHAPTER XIX. THE VOLCANIC COUNTRY BATHING IN A HOT LAKE A MAORI PAH THE GREAT GEYSER OF WHAKA-REWA-REWA. OHINEMUTU stands on the line of the volcanic action which extends 150 miles in a north-easterly direction from Tongariro, the burning mountain in the centre of the island, to the White Island, a restless crater of pure sulphur, lying a few miles off the sea-coast. The village is built on one of the thinnest parts of the earth's crust. The surface is broken up by steaming holes, hot springs, and geysers, and the frail ground imperfectly covers up a seething volcanic tumult, which stretches far under Lake Rotorua, and raises the temperature of the water at many places to boiling-point. Ohinemutu is situated on the south-western shore of this lake, which is a circular sheet of water, with an island rising 400 feet in the centre of it. This island of Mokoia is the scene of a charming Maori legend, a variation on " the old, old story " of Hero and Leander. The heroine Hinemoa was of the greatest beauty, and the ancestress of the present inhabitants of the island and mainland. As her name shows, she was " a girl like the Moa," so the great bird must have been considered graceful in its day. Though a chiefs daughter residing on the mainland, she fell in love with Tutanekai, an obscure individual living on the island. The noble family, whose blue blood boiled with indignation, opposed her marriage with the common person residing on the island. So Hinemoa, under shelter of darkness, in answer to the midnight solo of her lover on a flute made out of a man's leg-bone, strung gourds round her waist and swam across to the little isle. Here the " lady of the lake " was received with open arms, and with her plebeian husband lived happily ever afterwards. Hence this village has been called Ohinemutu, or " the girl that went over." It is at present the chief native settlement accessible to the traveller, and here may be seen the Maori in as near as possible an approach to his native state, which in an age when the tendency of everything savage and romantic is to R 258 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. become rapidly civilized and commonplace, is no small matter of interest. The white man has only put his face in as yet to the extent of a store and two small wooden hotels ; and it was in front of one of these latter that we drew up on the night we arrived at the settlement. Close by, we could see the dark line of the village huts, and a little farther off, the surface of Rotorua reflecting the brilliant heavens. Distant shouts of laughter, Maori talk, and far-off sounds of splashing came from the lake, where the natives were revelling in a warm bath. On dismounting, our captain inquired at the hotel people for a young native to take charge of the horses one, he said, with some influence amongst the tribe, as there was a chestnut horse which he feared might be stolen so a square-built young fellow came, and led off our wearied steeds to shelter. Then, in obedience to a request for oats, the hotel-man carefully weighed out a bag in the verandah, charging us sixteen shillings a bushel, or about ten shillings more than we paid anywhere else. This, as much as the strange surroundings, impressed us with the fact that we were far from a centre of civilization. The hotel was small and homely, and the parlour had a rough table laid out for tea, and round it was gathered a goodly company of surveyors and men working upon the roads. After partaking of tea and spiced beef, we felt our hunger appeased. But our two days' horse- riding had left us very fatigued. So we determined to have a warm bath that very night. The hotel-folks instructed us as to the proper costume. We went to our rooms, removed our clothes, arrayed ourselves with blankets round our waists after the manner of kilts, put on hat and coat, drew on boots on our bare feet, and were ready for a plunge at any moment. The hotel-man lit a lantern and went carefully in front of us towards the village, a few yards distant. We walked with wary steps on the narrow path, past boiling springs and active mud- holes, holding our noses to exclude the sulphureous fumes, till we reached a square bath dug out of the ground, and fed by a small gutter communicating with a hot spring. Throwing off our hats and coats, kicking off our boots, and letting our blankets fall, we jumped simultaneously into this open-air bath, and, giving ourselves up to the luxury, rested our heads on the warm stone edge and looked up at the stars. Then we rolled, and laughed, and spluttered, and kicked up our heels the small bath with its struggling occupants being illuminated every few moments by a flash of the lantern, to the great Pools of Boiling Mud. 259 delight of the onlooking Maories, who were fast becoming numerous. We came out new men, with none of the chill experienced after taking an ordinary hot bath, but feeling as warm in the cold night-air as we did in the water. Neverthe- less, we made haste back to the hotel, or at least as much haste as the fear of mud-holes would allow. Next morning we saw a remarkable sight. The day was clear and frosty, and the lake glittered in the sun, while in the foreground stood the settlement, almost shrouded in immense clouds of steam, and the prosaic thatched roofs of its dingy brown huts unfolding poetically through the wreathing vapour. The coldness of the morning inviting us to a second bath, we dressed ourselves in the approved costume, though thinking we would be the laughed-at of all observers on emerging from the hotel, so ludicrous did we feel in the striped bed-blankets. But we excited no mirth, save when one of our number, who had nervously adjusted his blanket in a loose fashion, cut an absurd figure by the garment at odd moments suddenly droop- ing at one side, after the manner of classic sculpture. We went down to the lake at a slow pace, winding amongst the native huts, and pausing every few steps to notice some new volcanic wonder. Here a mud-hole was guttering close to our feet here a hot stream was overflowing the path, and converting it into a treacherous sponginess here, again, mud was painfully heaving, and with difficulty bursting into a bubble here a boiling pool was in continuous rapid simmer here a group of small craters were snorting away, like custards bubbling hot from the oven, with dry mud like pie-crust encircling them. Continual sullen mutterings met our ears, with frequent harsh outbursts, that, combined with the odour of sulphur, gave one the idea of subterranean oaths or fierce language, as compared with the purer utterances of more natural streams. Now and then the heat of the earth penetrated right through our boots, and we had quickly to shift our position, so thin was the path- way. At some places, if you simply poke with a stick into the ground, steam will come out of the hole. To imagine or describe boiling mud is about as difficult as to detail an emo- tion. To see it is to see something that will assuredly be remembered. When we got down to the lake, we saw its banks steaming with hot springs, which were sparking and bursting out, and pouring their scalding rills into the greater body of water. Bathing was only possible at certain parts, and a favourite 260 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. resort seemed to be a little inlet where the temperature was somewhat bearable. One or two Maories were plunging about when we arrived, while on the sloping bank sat a long semi- circle of natives, male and female an interesting crowd, increasing every moment, greatly to our dismay. We were for relinquishing the bath altogether, but the guide laughed at our scruples, and it was only with the utmost ingenuity, and at the sacrifice of every elegant attitude, that we glided out of our blankets into the lake. The temperature of the water, owing to the outside frost, felt very warm and highly enjoyable, save when our toes got too firmly embedded in the hot ooze at the bottom, or when hot currents of water would glide out from the shore. The lake was of varying depths, like any other lake, and had an irregular bottom, with submerged warm rocks here and there, on which you could stand when you were tired of swimming. The 'captain, tempted to explore the depths of Rotorua, swam out some little distance, and, after a long dive, reappeared almost breathless, having twisted down into deep darkness, in a vain search for the bottom. The news soon spread that a party of pakehas were bathing, and the youth of the village swelled the already considerable assembly. A long string of Maori boys, running over a raised point of land just above our heads, plunged one after the other, with shout and shriek, into the lake some flying head foremost, some shooting feet first into mid-air, some springing off with a high somersault all flinging themselves into the steaming lake with jollity, dash, and precision ; and one squat little four-year- old amusing us greatly by the comically manly way in which he bundled himself into the water. The boys, who were not only more than usually happy, but also extremely clean, swam with their mouths puffing and protruding like penny trumpets. For variety, they played at hide-and-seek, one diving after the other, and the pursued reappearing in unexpected places, the dis- appointment of the pursuer being hailed with loud laughter from the shore. Then the boys squeezed soap-bubbles out of their hands, and the glittering spheres glided away into the steam, the heated air that rose from the lake keeping them for a long time unbroken. In one corner of the inlet a young Maori girl, who had been sent out to " mind the baby," sat in the water with only her head and shoulders visible, and the face of her little charge ; and, if I am not mistaken, any display of noisy temper on the part of the infant was quelled by a sudden immersion of its head ! All this time a heavy curtain of steam BatJii)ig in a Hot Lake. 261 moved over the water, and we saw only a very few yards out from the shore, though at favourable moments the air would stir the vapour, and through a rapidly-shifting vista we would behold further parties of Maories disporting in the lake. The full enjoyment of this open-air bath, with all the wonder of seeing such an expanse of warm water, together with its strange surroundings of picturesquely-clad Maories, quaint huts, and steam-dotted scenery, is almost indescribable. To have the opportunity of being so utterly removed from the world, to have an entire freshness ,of experience, was to us worth all the toilsome journey. We were in the water three-quarters of arr hour, and felt no weakening effects, but came out with sharp appetite for breakfast. The table at the hotel, though not first-class, as might have been expected in such an outlandish place, was very liberally supplied steak, chops, and preserved meat in lumps figuring at every meal. There was never any appearance of milk or eggs ; but then we had failed to get these in some of the most rural parts of the colonies. The only white woman in Ohinemutu was the wife of the hotel cook, and no doubt her presence partially toned down the rudeness inseparable from domestic matters performed by men. Though the weather was cold, yet the only fire about the place was in the kitchen, and used, of course, for culinary purposes. But the habit of the folks on feeling chilly was to go out and bathe the body by this means being kept warm for hours, owing to some property in the water, or to the uniform heat. The hotel was resorted to during the forenoon by several of the invalids who visit the baths of Ohinemutu every year in search of health. Some of these persons had come over by canoe from a place on the other side of the lake, where the afflicted ones sit for hours under a hot waterfall, freeing themselves gradually from rheu- matism and other ailments. The invalids had made their weekly visit here for provisions and for the sake of company, seven days being long enough to make them as desirous of seeing new faces as of getting fresh food. The hotel people grew eloquent over the marvellous cures effected. " This man here was reg'lar tied in a knot with rheumatics, and now, in a few weeks, he's bathed them all out of him. And look at Thomson ! that feller was awfully down with nervous fever and no appetite, and now he's like to swallow up the 'ole 'otel ! And that man over there, that couldn't move with pains in his right leg when he came first, is hard at work getting up a foot- 262 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. ball club. Old Parr is nothing to the bilin' waterfall ! " What with strangers flocking from all parts to see the phenomena of this district, and invalids coming to benefit by the really cura- tive properties of its waters, Ohinemutu will at a future day be a popular holiday-ground and sanatorium. At present the number of visitors is very small indeed, owing chiefly to the difficulty and expense of the journey from Auckland, and to the rough accommodation provided at the lakes. When railways and fine roads are made, when a large hotel is built, and when a score or so of Maori huts have given place to as many board- ing-houses, there will be less of interest, and still less of romance, but there will be more tourists. After breakfast we went through the pah, or enclosed section of the settlement. The palisade is constructed of wooden rods, but is now falling into decay; the corner-poles, with their hideous carved heads, toppling over, and the whole fence look- ing as if blown down by a strong wind. No care seems to be expended on it. The rising generation of Maories are lazy, and have lost to a great extent the traditions of their forefathers. They do not build fine runangas now the young girls have no deftness in mat-weaving. We saw the runanga here a fine building, with a most elaborately-carved front and the usual large porch, in which sat a group of the grey-bearded elders of the tribe, dressed in all those combinations of flaring and striped shawls and blankets which make any gathering of Maories look gay. Under the eyes of this august assembly, just four or five feet from the porch, was one of those artificial baths dug out of the earth, and in it reclined a white man, nothing of whom was seen but his head resting on the edge, and his hand upholding a yellow-covered novel certainly the height of reading luxury. These tanks are common throughout the settlement, and are much used by the natives. Then, again, over the hot springs the Maories place large stone slabs, on which they squat in the shades of evening, with their blankets wrapped round them, enjoying the warmth. Women were sunning themselves at the doors of their huts, while some were rolling pumpkins to the bottom of a boiling pool, and some were cooking fish and potatoes in flax " kits " or bags, which they let down by a string into the water. I do not recollect seeing a fire the whole time we were in the native quarter. The boiling springs warm the Maories and cook their food. It is said, however, that the sulphur fumes cause their teeth to decay. Going along the pah, we saw a large heap of pipi shells, the accumulation of long- A Maori Pah. 263 continued feasting. Another mound of shells showed the rest- ing-place of the hotel groom, who had fallen into scalding-hot mud just a day or two before, and had perished in great agony. The grave of the wretched man was dug in the centre of the pah, and during the last ceremony the boiling water, horrible to relate, burst in and gushed over his coffin. Maori graves were also to be seen, all marked with carved posts and flat boards, with ornamental designs, some of which might have been regarded as unseemly by the European mind. The pah was lined with small paths, which ran past the huts like small streets, and when we came to the end of one of these, a break in the rod fence let us out into the general settlement. We saw few young or middle-aged men about, but were told that they had all gone some miles off to prepare for a grand feast. The Maories are great in the matter of feasts. When we were at the Thames an important meeting was being arranged. The women had been sent on in advance to erect tents and to dry fish. One hundred tons of flour, fifty tons of sugar, two tons of dried fish, together with grog and shell-fish, had been despatched to the ground. For the natives gather in large numbers, and the festivities are prolonged. The meeting, as usual, was simply to break the ordinary routine of Maori life a kind of social reunion, with a discussion at its close on some matter of important business. This blending of the banquet, the pic-nic, and the committee-meeting is peculiar to the Maories. Walking along, threading the mud-holes, and wondering how so many children could romp about unscathed on such a perilous playground, we met several little Maori boys with school-books in their hands then an urchin vigorously making figure sixes all over a large slate then a little girl, spelling- book in hand, murmuring her lesson. The school was in a rude sort of shed, and presided over by a Maori with some knowledge of English, who was imparting instruction in arith- metic, the children swaying their bodies and gabbling over the multiplication-table. In front of a whare an old man sat cross- legged, a gun in his lap, a file in one hand, and in the other a nipple several times too large for the piece, which he held up for our inspection. The guide, in his usual quiet way, informed the veteran sportsman that a shot from the gun with that nipple would be more fatal at the butt-end than at the muzzle, hearing which the old man's jaw fell, and* we left him quite crestfallen. 264 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. Our stroll ended at the general store, which is kept by a kindly Edinburgh man, whom we saw standing in front of his premises soaping down the leg of a horse which had stumbled into a mud-hole. The limb was fearfully swollen and quite raw, and was a most unpleasant reminder of one's own danger. Beside the storekeeper stood a Maori, who was signalling most energetically with his arms, twisting and waving them in every possible direction, talking in this dumb-show to a party on thelake in a canoe, propelled swiftly with six paddles and two large sails. This store was made out of an old Maori house, and the shop-sign appeared out of keeping with the overhanging thatched eaves and wooden door-posts. On one side of the premises were woollen goods and drapery, and on the other shelves of books the first sold chiefly to the Maories, the second patronised by tourists in the summer season. The shop was divided into front and back by a huge wooden figure, erected by the former Maori tenants, and we walked to the rear of the building between its outstretched legs. A clock had lately been let into the paunch of this Colossus, giving it a most ludicrous appearance. The storekeeper was in fear that his act would be resented as an insult to the Maories, who hold the stomach to be a sacred part, and also regard it, very sensibly, as the seat of joy and anger. A week previously there had been severe shocks of earthquake in the village of all places certainly the least favourable for such a visitation and several new hot springs had made their appearance, one stream rushing up alongside this store, to the astonishment of the proprietor, who had seen springs gradually coming nearer and nearer, but who had never expected to have one so close. By careful calculation he finds that the next hot spring will break out in his bedroom, which he thinks will be a great comfort in the winter evenings, and will considerably save his fuel ! Our friend concluded by showing us a bath, about half a mile off, which he had lately made, but for which the Maories obstinately want payment. It is formed on the banks of a creek, so that after a warm bath you can at once roll over the edge into a cold running stream. Different pools were next pointed out to us, lurking amongst the high manuka scrub, and all of different temperatures, ranging from tepid to the highest boiling-point one basin being fed by a particularly noisy spring, that burst fiercely from under a weighty stone slab. We had hardly left all this commotion when we came to another scene of disturbance an open space of ground, where A Field of Sulphur. 265 stood a Maori, his face convulsed with rage, tearing down a palisade which divided some disputed property the man passionately plucking up rod after rod and flinging them into a large fire which blazed behind him. It was certainly a most summary case of litigation. While here we visited the hot springs of Whaka-rewa-rewa, three miles from the village. They take their rise in the midst of what we thought the most unholy, unhealthy-looking spot that could possibly be on the face of the earth. The ground for several acres seemed to have been violently flayed, and scorched by fierce fire of all vegetable life. Not a green leaf showed amongst the steaming earth and hot rocks. It seemed to be a weird, enchanted ground, the scene of wild revel and diablerie. In the centre, like a witch's cauldron, and reached by rude, natural steps, stood the elevated basin of a spring brimful of hot water, the surface of which was calmly steaming, though tremulous a little from latent heat. There were stony mounds, too, clambering up which we looked down into roaring cavities of fiercely-hot water; and heavy slabs of rock over- shadowing deep holes, bending your ear to which you could hear far down a tumult of boiling mud. The ground was very hot, cracking all over with subterranean heat, and sounded jrtentously hollow to the tread, as if one were walking over uilts. A strong smell of brimstone and of mineral decom- position pervaded the spot mysterious rumbling noises haunted the ear. Immense boulders lay about, many of them crusted over with white scaly growth, and some hardly bearable to the touch. In these huge blocks were small bore-holes, their mouths flecked yellow by the sulphur fumes that blew out in frequent puffs of steam. Such a display of cooked chemicals we never saw before. Great lumps of sulphur strewed the ground, and gave the queerest possible look to the scene. I picked up a large piece, so temptingly bright, yellow, and floury, but instantaneously discovered that the sulphur was just about red-hot ! Further research was continued by chipping the sulphur blocks with the butt-ends of our whips, during which operation one of our party, whose whip boasted a silver head, was surprised to find it rapidly change to the hue of brass, a transformation that lasted long after we had left this unhallowed spot. We walked amongst steaming crevices, yellow tracks, hot smooth boulders, and mud-craters innumerable, that boiled thickly like porridge, with bursting bubbles that released little 266 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. jets of steam a feeling of insecurity beginning to creep over us, increased by the sound of our sepulchral footsteps. Interest and apprehension struggled for the upper hand, as one moment we would be almost taking to our heels, and the next, gazing in admiration at the great geyser, a spectacle so magni- ficent as to more than repay us for all our fear and trouble. This splendid natural fountain was rising to its full height, swathed in a shroud of steam, pumping its poplar-shaped columns sixty feet into the air. It shot them up irregularly, something like thirty, forty, ten, twenty, and fifty feet ; and sixty feet flying up every now and then as a bold, unmistak- able climax the hot spray glittering in the sun amidst the enwreathing clouds of steam, which the wind blew off in time for us to see the next high jet as it burst violently out of the earth. Our luck was really enviable. Numberless were the tourists who had failed to see this geyser in action, coming at the wrong season, or when the fountain was indulging in well- earned repose. And here, on a hap-hazard visit, were we favoured with this, one of the grandest exhibitions of the vol- canic forced of nature. We stood for a long time enchained to the spot, a few yards from the fountain, on its windward side, listening to the plashing of the water and the heavy, impelling thuds of the geyser, and watching its varying heights with the greatest interest. This irregularity was one of its chief charms. The play of an artificial fountain is regular, beautiful, and tame. This was uncertain, wild, wonderful, and had a spice of danger in it ; for the wind, veering slightly, sent the hot spray shower- ing over us. After the first blush of the wonder was over, we amused our- selves by throwing in large stones at the hot roots of the poplar fountains, a practice we had heard of as being indulged in by travellers in Iceland, the geysers of which, by the way, some authorities declare to be inferior to those of New Zealand. But our geyser did not at first, as we had read of other geysers, instantly eject the foreign material ; and it was not until fully a quarter of a minute, during which one could imagine the stone dashing and swirling in the cauldron, that the geyser, with a loud, spluttering snort, hurled the fragment of rock high into the air, where we lost it amid the confused upward rush of the water and the agitated circlings of the steam. This was so exciting sport that, I need hardly say, we repeated the process over and over again; and I cannot tell how long we would have remained here but for a startling interruption. A loud The Great Geyser. 267 bass solo came rumbling out of a yawning gullet of a hole be- hind us a cavity quite dry and inactive when we took up position in front of it. Steam began to curl about our legs, and, with an exclamation of alarm, we all rushed off, preceded by our guide, and never stopping till we got some yards from the newly-awakened spring. We had been standing with our heels almost into the mouth of an intermittent geyser ! Our departure was not a moment too soon, for the boiling liquid commenced to well and spurt out, making a good deal of fierce fuss thick, lumpy masses of water vomiting out and deluging the place where we had been standing, any one of which out- bursts, had we remained, would have been remembered by us for life. It was a thrilling conclusion to our experiences at Whaka-rewa-rewa ; and after a last look at this unearthly, sulphur-strewn locality, and a lingering farewell glance at the noble geyser, which would soon be playing unseen by eye of man, we retraced our steps through the scrub to Ohinemutu. CHAPTER XX. PIERRE'S "MAISON DE REPOS" ROTOMAHANA THE WHITE TERRACE THE HOT SPRINGS THE PINK TERRACE A DANGEROUS HORSE-RIDE. ABOUT half-past two in the afternoon we left Ohinemutu for Wairoa, the village where the canoes were to take us to Roto- mahana. At first the road lay alongside Rotorua, the shores of which were strewn with yellow blocks of sulphur, that loaded the air with heavy fumes, and the water lukewarm and unpalatable, as shown by the many unsuccessful attempts of our hacks to get a drink. We made a short cut across the corner of the lake, with the water up to our horses' bellies. Then a ride through luxuriant bush brought us to Tiki Tapu, or the sacred lake, out of which the natives will neither fish nor drink a calm beautiful expanse of water, seen by us on a lovely afternoon, and so glassy that reality and reflection seemed one and the same. Beside this lake were one or two Maori huts, made of grasses and sedges, and out of one of these whares a white man came to greet us. "Ah ! Pierre," cried our captain, "we in- tend living with you to-night at your Maison de Repos, so hurry up and lead the way ! " hearing which we looked at one another in utter surprise. Could this man possibly be the ideal Pierre, the urbane Frenchman whom we had pictured in our minds, whose little gem of an advertisement, announcing every accommodation and comfort at " Une Maison de Repos" had appeared regularly in the Auckland dailies ? He would have made the soberest person laugh. Trudging before us, Pierre looked every inch a veritable Communist. He had on a short old coat, a battered slouched hat, and baggy blue trousers, revealing secret raiment, walked barefooted, had a canvas bag slung over his back, and carried a double-barrelled gun over his shoulder, talked with a slight French accent, and told us he had been out " trying to get some peegeon," an expedition that his lank wallet showed to be unsuccessful. He shambled before us for a mile or two, perhaps, and after passing another Une Maison de Repos. 269 larming little lake, Roto Kakahi, we came to the Frenchman's louse. If our wonder was great at seeing Peter, how much more vere we astonished at seeing his "Maison" a hut made of lupo, a kind of reed which grows in the swamps, and is much jrized by the Maories for building and thatching. It looked a retched abode; but how could we expect a hotel in these lesolate parts ? As usual, one or two Maories took charge of Dur horses, and then we went inside the hut The Frenchman lit a fire in the centre of the earthen floor, and filled the room nth smoke. A table measuring three feet by two was taken rom a corner, a small napkin of a cloth spread over it, and ien as many dishes as possible crowded upon it Two wooden )xes, two chairs, and two trestle sofas completed the furniture, couple of doors gave ingress to two miniature bedrooms, each xupied by a very hard pallet. In a back place, Pierre stood id cooked our tea, surrounded by numbers of cats and dogs. After long frying, several dishes were brought in, but they were 11 "peeg," as Peter said. His nationality asserted itself even this lonely bush, seasoning being an essential part of all the aands. We had pork and mint, ham and celery, bacon and 1m, or something to that effect. There was soup, too, with flavour of " peeg " about it, and one of us pulled out of his late what looked like a boiled locust, upon which our host exclaimed : " Hah ! leaf it there ; dat is de bouquet, de flaivaire, a leetle packet of mint ! " We enjoyed our tea very mch, the Frenchman all the time cutting bread for us with a larp bowie knife, a long blade with a richly jewelled handle, which he had got in a present at Brazil. After this we made inquiries as to our pending canoe-trip. The arrangement is, that there are two Maories to every European in the boat, and that each native is paid five shil- ings. As there were five of us, and as there were five shillings to add for the canoe, the fare would amount to 2, 155., rather a large sum for a few miles of water-journey. We expressed ourselves as not being very well pleased with the Maories. "Oh, I hate them!" roared Peter " I belief that Rotomahana is de infernal regions, and these felloss are de imps. I could kill them, and cook them too!" Our Frenchman was Soyer and Robespierre in one. " They are the plake of my life," con- tinued he " only shoost the other day I horsevipped a Maori woman that I caught setting fire to my house. Dey are demons, every one of them. Once, during de war, a rascal 270 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. Maori he come and he look in through the hinge of my door so I steal up quiet, put dis here gun to his noss, and " (drawing his hand rapidly across his face) " I blowed away all dat ! Oh ! it woss rare times I did like to see dem battlefields all de black fellos lying ! Oh ! de hacked faces, de cracked skulls, de red faces, de slashed boties ! Oh ! I could haf danced with delight." "Surely," we said, " you must like your Maori friends here they cannot be bad neighbours ? " "I tell you wot it eez, now," said Pierre " dey are the biggest rokes in de country dey want all the trade of this place, so they are going to turn me aowt, de yellow Indians ! Dey shall lose a peeg presently. Oh, de fowls I haf stole from de blackguards ! I put down oats on my floor one hen come in, I wreeng his neck another come, I do de same another, shoost de same another and another and another, till I had two dossen of dem under de floor of my hut and I lifFed on dem for days de blackguards, de pagans, de cut-throats ! what, is dat you again ? " and away he rushed with a broom after a dog that was licking a leg of pork in his back room ; " one would think he was starfed I gave him a ham-bone this morning first thing ! " Then we asked about the Wairoa Maories, and he told us they were paupers born and bred, would not work, and pre- ferred to live on the Government allowance of flour and sugar. There was a flour-mill here belonging to the natives, but it is now broken and decayed a church and school, but both are deserted. Laziness and ingratitude were loudly charged against the Maories by the Frenchman, who finished by saying " Uey never think of all that I'fe done for them, bringing visitors to this place, this good-for-nothing hole, which I belief woss the last place created on de face of de earth ! " We sat for a long time round the fire, listening to his tales of adventure, war, slaughter, theft, and other cheerful subjects, but there seemed no signs of him preparing our beds, so at last we suggested that he turn his place into a " Maison de Repos." " Well, one he can sleep here on this sofa by de fire, and another one he can lie on this side, and one on de floor that make three ; and two can sleep in de rooms that makes de five of you." Without taking off our clothes, and with rugs over us, we lay down in our appointed places, though sleep was difficult to obtain, owing to Peter walking out and in, telling us a tremendous story of how he single-handed met a crowd of Maories, gave them no quarter, but slew them all. and grafted the butt-end of his gun into the skull of an old chief. He A Dispute with the Maories. 271 ended his tale by throwing a billet of wood at a cat which was jamming its head into a jug, and then, with our eyes almost blinded by the heavy smoke, we sank to sleep. In the morning we arose, stiff and cold, to find the wind howling, the rain falling in torrents, and Pierre chasing stray hens in the middle of a sanguinary tale of war, half heard amidst the hissing of bacon. By-and-by a Maori slid quietly in at the door of the hut, and told 'our guide that the canoe could not face the gale, and that the " pakehas " (we) would have to wait till the weather cleared up. As that seemed a question of weeks, and our exchequer was not without limits, we said we would go by land, with this Maori as an additional guide one of the rules being, that a native must accompany you. Fair or foul, we were determined to see Rotomahana that day ! In a short time six Maories, in long straggling file, came sidling up towards the hut like cats. One by one they sneaked past the front door, one by one they disappeared round the gable, one by one they invaded the back kitchen, one by one they came in and silently stood before us. Then they all sat down, to the great disgust and anger of poor Peter. After a long pause, the spokesman of the party com- menced a running fire of words in the most voluble manner, with looks of deep indignation, his eyes flashing, his arms gesticulating, and his voice becoming husky through vehe- mence. Our guide, the captain, with his head to one side, and a meek, condescending smile beaming on his face, leant on his arm upon the table, and after the Maori had finished, said : " This excited individual declares that you mustn't go by horse or if you do, you must pay all the same for the canoe, whether you use it or not !" The Maories looked at us to see the effect of their speech, but we laughed it off as a good joke, while the captain rattled off, in his placid manner, his opinion of the matter, telling them our determination to pay only one guide. The spokesman said it was against their " ture," or laws, to allow such a thing, but he was immediately extinguished by a gush of eloquence from a storekeeper who had looked in from next door. This new ally was getting out of breath, when Pierre broke in with great impetuosity, uttering Maori with a strong French accent, hurling phrases about him like firebrands, awaking the resentment of every member of the deputation, and raising a perfect Babel of harsh clamour our excited host, in the course of time, becoming galled by the re- straints of a foreign tongue, and giving vent to long strings of 272 Kennedys Colonial Travel. expletives in broken English finally driving the whole party out of the front door with the flourish of a saucepan, still drip- ping with bacon-fat. We told Peter to have tea ready for us when we came back, and left without any opposition from the natives. For nine miles we rode over mountainous country, through damp scrub, and against blinding showers that the wretched horses could scarcely face, and that made us sit doubled up in the saddle the bridle-track winding up and down hill and dale, and stretching along the face of dreary broad mountain-sides. At length we reached the brink of a high ridge, from whence, to our great joy, we saw beneath us the famous Rotomahana. " Roto " is the Maori for lake " mahana " means warm. It is a small lake, about a mile in length, covered with reeds in many places, and girdled by green hills, which, when we saw them, were being swept by driving mists. The Maories, amongst a number of similar fancies, have a saying in reference to rain, that when strangers come the mountains weep ; and certainly on this occasion the little hills around had burst into uncontrollable grief. On this lake are situated the two " Ter- races " unparalleled volcanic phenomena each a long descent of wondrous basins formed by the silicious deposits of an overflowing boiling spring, which takes its rise high up on the hill-side. One terrace is white, the other pink one on each side.dof the lake. From our high point of vantage we saw only the first of these, " Te Tarata," in full view, like an immense white altar sunk into the hills that encompass the lake the suc- cession of basins a broad flight of steps, and the cloud of steam at the summit the rising sacrificial incense. We hastened down to have a nearer view tied our horses in an open part of the scrub crossed a warm-flowing creek in a most rickety canoe ; and opening up the flax-bushes on the margin, came upon a large white flooring of silicate leading to the lower steps of Te Tarata, which terrace now sloped up before us in all its strange grandeur and beauty. We had to walk for thirty or forty yards along the peculiar flooring, finding it crisp, hollow to the tread, and covered with a thin film of water, like ice in the first stage of a thaw the surface veined with countless arteries or skeleton twigs interlacing with each other, and half washed over with deposit, like twigs that had been frosted into the ground. These petrified twigs, and the wings and bodies of birds, together with a large variety of other articles hardened by the white deposit, can be purchased as mementoes from the The White Terrace. 273 Maories, who, to keep up the trade, place a constant supply of fresh specimens in the magic waters of the spring. We were lucky enough to procure some preserved leaves and sticks. The basins that compose the Terrace are really wonderful. They have been formed by accretion, though one would have fancied they had been hollowed out by the water. As the hot spring poured down year by year over the hill-side, it slowly built up these basins. These are of an exquisite shell-shape, with smooth rounded lips, and fringed with the most delicate stalactites, that droop thickly over the rim of each basin, in some places like a thick fleece, in others like lovely hanging moss transformed into marble. The basins are of varying sizes, from those capable of accommodating four, six, or eight bathers at once, down to the smallest and most elegant of puddles ; yea, dwindling off at the base of the terrace to miniature pools about the size of breakfast-cups, mere ripples in the silicate flooring. The large basins all curve outwards, and the limits of one fre- quently overlap or blend imperceptibly into another, which, as well as their different sizes, relieves them from the tameness of regularity. Then the water that flows down the terrace is of a bluish tinge, coloured by some" mineral pigment; and the brim- ming pools in the basins are of a deep, opaque blue a blue never seen in sky or sea, save in a boy's first water-colour paint- ing. The colour inclines to violet, and though affording a start- ling contrast, yet harmonises in hue with the general appearance of the terrace, which is said to be of a most dazzling whiteness in the sun. The brilliant blue water looked very queer to us under a dark rainy sky. Led by white guide and brown Maori, we commenced to ascend the Terrace. Crisp, crisp, crisp ! we went crunching along the rims of the basins, from one to another, zig-zagging thus up the front of the Terrace. Crisp, crisp, splash ! our feet frequently slipped down the smooth, shelving interior of the basins, and we felt the warm water unpleasantly in our boots. As step by step we ascended, each successive series of pools became of course hotter and hotter, necessitating more and more careful walking, till at the top we beheld the cause of all these phenomena the boiling cauldron, one hundred feet above the level of the lake. Looking through some manuka bushes that had been left intact by the silicate, we saw it was a semi-circular crater, composed of walls of red earth, which had been gutted out of the hill according to scientific authority, a crater of felspathic tufa, decomposed into yellow and red clays by the s 2/4 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. steam and gases of the spring. The cauldron was still, but small bells like diamonds were rising through the indigo depths to the surface, the blue of the water tinging the body of steam that moved about its placid surface. This cauldron, strange to say, ebbs or flows according to the direction of the wind, the spring at times boiling over, and again, during an unfavourable breeze, becoming a yawning void. Turning round from the crater, and looking down upon the terrace, the grandest sight of all burst into view. The whole of the basins were seen at once the blue pools set in a long descent of alabaster steps a gradient of white marble, inlaid with basins of exquisite shape and loveliness. It was a fairy scene, viewed under the acme of personal discomfort, a gale and driving rain, which however had no power to break the spell. Mingled emotions of wonder and admiration sweep over the mind on seeing Te Tarata. You have before you an abnormal but charming sight, a new revelation of volcanic power, an unlooked-for display of the versatility of Nature. You can but exclaim, "Is it real?" Not till long afterwards could we believe we had been ten minutes here, and had seen this rapid vision of great beauty. The whole scene was so amazingly unreal the shape of the basins and the vivid colours so unnatural. Nature seemed for once to have had recourse to art, and eclipsed man in his own principles of design and effect. We said to ourselves, " Here is the eighth wonder of the world, and the greatest ! " From the White Terrace we went through the scrub that grew along the lake by a succession of paths of yellow, pink, red, and brown clay, and one that had all the appearance of mottled soap. We came to a deep crater, with high, steep sides, where water was roaring and steaming in a way to make the hair creep on our several scalps so much so, in fact, that when the guide proposed a closer inspection, we felt the same as if suddenly called upon to visit the fragile cage of some infuriated wild beast. A large cone of water, rising four feet amongst a host of smaller dome-shaped bubbles, travelled round the crater in all the agony of boiling point, flinging itself in wild concussions against the walls that mercifully imprisoned it flying round in a frenzy, as if trying to break out and away from the scene of confusion steam all the time whirling, and the ground trembling with the boiling gusts that drove up the liquid -mass. Skirting the raging spring, we came upon a ridge, or top of a thin wall of earth, separating this crater from another An Intermittent Geyser. 275 of equal size and impetuosity. The narrow ledge shook, and we trembled in our boots, between the conflicting forces. \\ V had literally at last to cower down and hold on by any small shrub we could get within reach, turning our heads first to one side and then to another, according to the violence of the one crater or the other. Imagine us thus, enveloped in clouds of steam at times, hidden from each other, with a great commotion of tossing waters all around us, and unaware of how or when the fury of the boiling springs might burst upon us. It was an awe-inspiring scene or rather experience, for we saw but little and right glad we were to crawl along the thin high wall to a place of comparative security. This was afforded us in a bare, open space of flat stony ground, broken up and seamed by rivulets of hot water, all of which took their rise in what looked like a moderate-sized fish-pond, a circular pool rippling with heat. In connection with this, as with many a hot spring in these parts, they tell a most thrill- ing story. A native woman, with her child slung behind her, was one day stooping over this pond, putting some potatoes in to boil, when the infant, rolling out of the shawl, fell over into the fatal pool, and in an instant the mother had sprung after it to certain death. Our guides here went slowly in front of us, the captain now and then, with outstretched foot, tapping the ground in advance, and. a hollow sound sometimes showing how needful was the precaution. At one place a hot spring hissed and puffed away with all the thudding and steady rythmical sound of a stationary engine at work ; at another, a jet was roaring like a steamship blowing off steam ; and at another, an intermittent fountain was ebbing and flowing, the water at certain intervals suddenly sinking out of sight in one mass, without the slightest bubble or commotion. This spring was in connection with another some distance off, one falling as the other rose. To this neighbouring intermittent fountain we next directed our steps. It was a large, rough natural basin or sink, with a kind of escape-hole at one extremity. This hole was about four feet wide at the mouth, funnel-shaped, narrowing as it went down, and the strata of the rock could be seen descending spirally. We stood waiting for the water to rise, which it was said to do every two or three minutes, and had not remained long when we heard a far-off, deep-down gurgling in the funnel. Nearer and nearer it came, louder and louder, with steam at last and a heavy rumbling noise. Then the water itself ap- 276 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. peared, rising slowly but tossing actively a wave swinging from side to side and bursting, losing its motion and flipping up in the air jerking, lashing, swaying sending a spurt of spray this side, dashing a wave now to that side of the funnel splash- ing, and foaming, and rearing, falling back exhausted, and heaving up again, till in a few minutes the water was flush with the mouth of the hole, and then the wave swung surging round the basin, shooting out columns of steam and bursts of scalding water. We shrank away at times as it came near. After raging for a time, the spring began to ebb. The bursts lan- guished, the water oscillated and fell, the steam disappeared from the basin, the water bubbled for a little while at a certain level, and then abruptly gurgled away like the last dregs in the neck of an upturned bottle. The Maori broke from our side, scrambled across the warm basin, darted in pure curiosity to the edge of the funnel, and gazed down, with some of the hot water trickling through his toes. But soon he sprang back. The underground hot wave had commenced to rise again. The waters rose in wrath and drowned themselves in steam dashed and broke on the sides of the hole amid explosions as of minia- ture torpedoes, and then sank as before. We stood amid pouring rain and in heavy damp clothes to look at this natural wonder. We could have watched that animate spring, with its enthralling uncertainty, for hours on end. The peculiar thing was, that we had a narrow escape from not seeing it at all. The Maori guide had just before this assured us that we had visited everything, thinking thereby to save himself a great deal of trouble, and prevent his getting further wet. But the captain, true as ever to our interests, and knowing the neighbourhood well, vehemently insisted upon the lazy fellow showing us all the objects of interest. So the Maori, with a great deal of reluctance, brought us first to the inter- mittent spring and then to the " Green Lake," a complete change from the wild turbulence of the former. Underneath an overshadowing mass of scrub we saw this most extraordinary dark-green lake, a small body of cold water, quiet and unruffled its green not the green of a lake dank with the scum of vegetable matter, but the green of a pigment, like the blue of the water on Te Tarata. " It's a lake of arsenic/' said the guide. Its coldness and placidity were very grateful amid the surrounding heat and turmoil. A canoe was to take us across the lake to the Pink Terrace. The boatmen proved to be two aged Maories, who, when we A Frail Canoe. 277 arrived, were sitting up to their necks in a warm bath, which was fed by a small gutter running across the road from a hot spring. They were partaking very heartily of potatoes and a peculiar compound of fish an enormous mess of whitebait. They very cordially invited us to share their meal, which, to tell the truth, we were not sorry to do eating of course with our fingers, like the Maories, for when you go to Rotomahana you have to do as Rotomahana does. Through our guide we told the two old fellows we did not want to hurry them either in meal or toilet, but that as soon as they had finished their humble repast we would be ready to start. They were reply- ing, when the spring gave three alarming snorts, and a volume of boiling water came pouring across the road, making our two old friends roll out of their bath in double-quick time. Simply clapping on a hat, the elder of the two conducted us to the canoe. This proved to be half of the trunk of a tree scooped out, which when new, say some thirty years ago, may have been a safe craft. At the period of this history it was so frail as to make us shudder at trusting ourselves in it, even on so smooth a lake. It could only accommodate three at a time, and two trips had to be made ; so, after the old man had baled out the canoe with an empty preserved-meat can, and spread some ferns on the bottom, three of us crept quietly in and sat down. The canoe wobbled violently, though weighted down to the gunwale ; and as we clutched to steady ourselves, our fingers were continually in ripples of hot water. The Maori pushed off, waded in, and sprang into the stern of the canoe. The precision with which the old fellow stepped into the frail log, without making it tilt, seemed a feat in our eyes, for the canoe was so delicately balanced that when we turned our heads to look at any object, the boat heeled over. It was an absurd sight to see the old gaunt Maori sitting up on the stern, stark naked, and dripping with bead-drops of rain, looking like a carved image, and gravely propelling the canoe. This he did, by the way, with a single paddle, and only on one side, giving a peculiar twist to the blade, which drove the canoe forward, and at the same time kept its head straight. The lake was of variable heats. At different points we saw boiling springs bubbling up, and all over we felt the water very hot. We passed a beautiful little island, and on coming near the Pink Terrace, crossed a veritable white river flowing out from the shore and running through the lake a river of hot milk gushing out of a crater of white cheese a sulphur- 278 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. stream, in fact, taking its rise in a boiling spring. When the canoe had cleared it, we came in view of the Pink Terrace. Now, this is what we regard as the greatest wonder of all that there should be two terraces. You could believe in one, as a kind of phenomenon or " fluke " of nature, but you are startled to find a duplicate marvel. The Pink Terrace is of exactly the same nature as the White Terrace, but is neither so large nor so beautiful, though it has a charm all its own in coming down close to the edge of the lake, like the flight of river-steps leading to an Indian temple. The " pink " of this terrace is a delicate salmon-colour, and though it has not so bold an effect as the white of Te Tarata, when seen at a distance, yet the tint is very beautiful on a close inspection. Along one side of this terrace, tourists have written their names with pencil on the silicate, thereby ensuring immortality, for the deposit carefully prevents any erasure. We stopped our denunciation when we saw we were forestalled by an indignant gentleman, who had written : " Here, where the feet of angels might tread, are inscribed the ubiquitous names of Brown, Jones, and Robinson ! " We had a bath of baths here ! The Maori led us up the terrace to the best of the basins, and then rolled into it himself without taking his clothes off that is to say, he kept his hat on. He shrugged himself with ecstasy, and with a face express- ing delight, as far as tattoo-marks would allow, unctuously exclaimed, " Kapai ! kapai ! kapai 1 " (good). The wind had increased to a gale, and we could hardly stand and undress on the edge of the basin for fear of being blown down into the one below. We laid our damp clothes close by on a little bush that had not yet been overrun by the deposit, and then one after the other stole quietly into the basin. The water was neither too hot nor too mild just the exact temperature, in fact. The only drawback, and a very slight one, was that the wind blew down occasionally an annoying mixture of cold sleet from the clouds and volumes of steam from the cauldron. The sides of the bath were white, smooth, and velvety, covered with a thin coating of ooze or slime, very pleasant to the touch. The basin had a sloping side. You could take any depth you liked, and at the bottom, a trifle warmer than the water, was a thick deposit of white mud. The wind very often drove the water over from the upper and hotter basins down to the one we were in, and this kept up the temperature very agreeably, though the currents of hot water sometimes came in quicker The Pink Terrace. 279 than we altogether liked. By putting our backs to the upper part of the basin, we could feel the higher temperature of the water trickling over from the basin above. We took a short dip in one of the baths a stage higher up, but the water was so stinging hot that we had to leave. The old Maori, however, who seemed inured to any temperature, remained calmly seated in the scalding water. After a while, he went off to fetch the rest of our party across, and we were left to ourselves. The whole surroundings the loneliness and desolation of the country the exquisite pink enamelled baths rising round about us the sound of the falling ripples from the basins the rumble of the cauldron up above the geniality of the waters produced such a kindly glow of body and such an exaltation of mind, that we fairly lay entranced and intoxicated. Then the others came toiling up the terrace from the lake commonplace individuals, compared to us water-sprites disporting in such a scene ; but soon they divested themselves of their clothes, and rose to the fairy level we had attained. There were six of us now in the basin at once, with room to spare. We swam, dived, rolled, floated, plunged, kicked up our heels, crawled out and sprawled in, revelling, lolling, and lounging in speechless pleasure. Rain might strike cold upon our faces, wind might blow, clouds might frown, but we were in a state of ecstasy which even the horror of presently putting on our damp-laden clothes could not allay. It was a bath which European or Oriental luxury has never yet equalled ! We bathed an hour, and came out rather light-headed and giddy. We were not surprised, as we had been told of the effects of this before we went in. What agony it was to put on our cold damp clothes and heavy great- coats. It did not have to be lingered over, however, if we were to be back at Monsieur Pierre's that night. So we got into the canoe again, were again paddled through the river of milk, and reached once more the fish and potatoes, of which we partook with the former zest. Splashing through the rain, we went round the curving base of the noble White Terrace, and reaching the spot where we had tethered our horses, were in a few moments in full but painfully damp trot to Wairoa. Our ride back in the darkness to Wairoa stands out as one of the most striking events of our New Zealand travel. The dark- ness was not the mere gloom of night, but an utter darkness, intensified by the deep gorges through which we passed, and the heavy clouds which overhung the sky. The Maori, with 280 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. the intention of keeping up our spirits, I suppose, chanted one of his " make-sings " or songs, and his voice, sounding away in the van of our Indian file, produced an effect at once wild and romantic. All descents, holes, and swamps had to be signalled by cries along our line ; while to increase the trouble, the clos- ing scrub beat against our horses' sides, and frequently whipped our faces. We crawled like flies along the broad hillsides, though we would have required to be fire-flies for anyone to have seen us in such a pronounced blackness. Level ground came in the course of time, and the horses broke into a canter, evidently knowing they were on the "home-stretch." But by degrees it struck my brother .and myself, the last two of the straggling caravan, that the sound of those in front seemed to be getting farther and farther away. Then it flashed upon us we were lost ! The horses had failed at last to smell out the small, fern-hidden track, and no shame to them, for, under con- ditions like these, we would not have blamed even one of Fenimore Cooper's Red Indians. In a few moments there was complete stillness, while we stood waiting for some of our party to return. At last the Maori came tearing back at a fearful speed. We could hear his horse rushing through the ferns, with the sound as of rending calico ; and, with all the breath the fellow had left, he kept on shouting till he was close at our ears. Then, riding off apparently at right angles to the way we had come, he led us back to the right road. When within half-a-mile of Wairoa, we saw lights twinkling far beneath us, and then recollected a precipitous descent which still lay between us and the settlement. We had crawled up this on our hands and knees, dragging the horses after us, and how we were to reverse the process now became a profound mystery. The road here was simply a narrow trench of alarming gradient, and as greasy with mud and rain as if soaped for our special destruction. The captain went off first, amidst confused foot-slipping, hoof-sliding, invectives, and a sound as of man and horse alternately taking the lead down-hill, and rolling over and over each other the noises dying away at last to a most eloquent silence. Then the Maori started, followed by his horse, and with one long rush he went swiftly to the bottom of the slope. We waited anxiously on the top to hear tidings from below of broken legs or contusions, but were pleased to learn both adventurers were safe. The Maori now proceeded to strike matches to show us the way down, and each successive twinkling light broke out almost An Extraordinary Hill. 281 beneath our feet, so precipitous was the descent "Tie up the bridles! let the horses slide!" cried the captain. \\ c groped about and made a big knot in each of the bridles, turned the first horse's unwilling head to the opening of the trench, and, with a good push on its hind-quarters, sent it off like a newly-launched ship, the animal not being able to stop itself for love or oats, and gliding helplessly down the declivity. Then away went the second horse, swift as an avalanche. Number three swerved at starting, and escaped from us. We had to yell vaguely at him in the darkness, but he arrived safely by another route, for we heard him crashing and thundering down-hill through the bracken. " Number four now ! " shouted the captain, while the Maori struck his final match ; and whiz went the last of the horses. One by one we slipped, tumbled, and rolled down the muddy trench, pitching about from side to side, tearing up the grass on either hand, and arriving amongst a cluster of horses' legs. Here we learned the extraordinary fact that our steeds had not at all arrived in the order we had sent them down so there must have been some ludicrous mixing and scrambling on the hill. The lights of Wairoa were all this time in great agitation, moving about as if distracted, for the Maories had heard our shouting. We made good haste, and soon alighted at the " Maison," the owner of which bustled out to greet us. " Ha ! * said he, " I woss shoost coming with my lantairn to show you down, but I thought I could do more good making your suppaire." " Quite right, my worthy Pierre," replied the guide ; and, following the example of the latter, we stripped ourselves to the skin, and hung up our wet clothes to dry. Then each robed himself simply in a blanket, and gathered round the big fire that crackled on the floor. After a while we signed our names in the Frenchman's book of visitors, and paid our bill, the charges of which were not higher than those of a first-class hotel ! Then, after a ham supper, we sat warming ourselves till a late hour, talking over what we had seen and were to see, and listening to Peter's wild stories of adventure. What charm lay in those ever-memorable days of unfettered life those days of pleasure, hardship, and hard fare ! Another month would have made us savages ! CHAPTER XXI. LAKE TAUPO TONGARIRO, THE BURNING MOUNTAIN NAPIER HAWKE'S BAY PROVINCE A NEW ZEALAND FOREST. ONE morning very early, in the cold and the darkness, we left Ohinemutu for Napier, a coach-ride of about 150 miles, which extended in this case over three days. We were the only passengers, the season of the year not being favourable to tourist traffic. The first stage of fifty miles was unequalled in roughness the coach travelling over the hard " tussocks," which caused the most distressing succession of jolts, and literally made our heads sore with continued bumping on the roof. Sometimes there would be a brief cessation, when the coach came upon parts of the road formed by Maori labour, but roughness would set in again. We arrived at Lake Taupo that evening, and drew up at the township thereof, called Tapuae- haruru, a large name for so small a place. It consisted chiefly of a stockade enclosing the post-office, a telegraph-office, store, and barracks, and surrounded by a ditch with plank-bridges thrown over it at places. The hotel was not within the palisade, and was only remarkable for the fact that in the parlour we met " Jack," the famous guide to the Hot Lakes, a big stalwart man, with a heavy cloak, broad belt, high boots, a hat with a long pheasant's feather, and the appearance of a Swiss brigand. Lake Taupo is called by the Maories " Te Moana," or the Sea. It is thirty miles long, and in one place twenty miles wide, with an area of 200 miles. There is a beautiful little island, Motu Taiko, in the centre of it. This lake has evidently been formed by the subsiding of the ground, for great numbers of trees are to be seen standing up in its waters. It is 1200 feet above the sea, and of great depth. The country round here for many miles is covered over with a stratum of pumice, sometimes several hundred feet thick, overlying a charred forest, and com- pletely burying up acres upon acres of splendid soil all this the result of great quantities of matter ejected in former years from the neighbouring volcanoes of Ruapehu and Tongariro. A Burning Mountain. 283 Ruapehu is over 9000 feet high, and is not active now, but Tongariro, 7000 feet high, occasionally breaks out into grand eruptions. Three years ago there was a magnificent display, the whole country being illuminated by the fierce flames that shot out from the crater, and the loud booming of Tongariro being heard as far as Napier, sixty miles distant, from whence also, during the daytime, people saw the heavy clouds of smoke that rolled from the burning mountain. Tongariro is the birthplace of two powerful opposing elements, fire and water, for the great river Waikato flows from the south side of the volcano. This evening we had a transcendent view of these two mountains, together with Lake Taupo and the other peaks, ranging from 3000 to 5000 feet, that surround it. The scene was lit up by a gorgeous sunset. A bright crimson hue overspread the sky, and the mighty forms of the mountain-masses, almost entirely snow-clad, stood out white, with bold sharp cut outlines against the glowing red horizon the crater of Tongariro being visible as a black rift on the pure mountain-side, while the lake lay quiet and sombre-coloured in the shades of twilight. We left Taupo next day amid doleful rain, that boded ill for our crossing the rivers. Seven miles on, we reached Opepe, a small constabulary station. Here we drew up at a store or canteen, on the counter of which lay boots and bottles, butter and nails, hams and tin-pots, and other promiscuously arranged objects. Like Waverley's steed, one of our horses had cast a shoe, and, like that young hero, we had to stop at this village to get the services of a blacksmith. Here, too, there was a large gathering of people, most of them in semi-military costume, talking over something of great interest. It was neither a Maori rising nor a rebellion; but a "play" acted by the Military Dramatic Amateurs on the previous evening: "Oh! Henry, how capitally you did the Count ! Really, you're a born aristocrat, ha, ha ! " "I don't know now ; I think you as the Marchioness was splendid ! 'pon my word, you're a tip-topper in the acting line." " You're both on you good I liked you both," said a man, evidently a carrier, staggering in with his long whip ; " I bet on both of you giss a drink, lallord and Jobson there, he come the Marquis, the long-lost heir, in nobby style, I tell you he's all there, an' no mistake ! " " Harry, I'll wager there was eighty people in the place if there was one." " Hunder-an-fifty's what I make it to be, but that's wrong, for Charlie here says it's nearer two-hunder." " Get out you must have been seeing double the footlights have been getting into your eyes 284 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. ninety to a bunder's my count ! " And the dispute had not finished when we drove off. The coach now passed through splendid timbered ravines, and over rolling, swelling country, through fine forests of totara, miro, matai, and kahikatea. The road was fine, the gradients being long and easy. You could lay a railroad track over this mountain-road and never distress a locomotive. By nightfall we arrived at an inn, and had an excellent tea, which the hostess, however, did not like us to praise, for whenever we eulogised the viands she huffily replied, " Oh yes ! we always keep the best of everything here ; " and though there was not another house within miles, yet when we commended the tidiness of her rooms, she exclaimed in injured tones, " You didn't think you was in the bush, did you ? " By daylight we started upon the grandest range-scenery it has ever been our good fortune to witness. We had travelled over mountains in Australia, but they had not the colour, the style, the bush, the height of these ranges. Hundreds of feet below us rushed a foaming river, confined in a narrow rocky bed, while roaring torrents, leaping out from the towering mountain-sides, shone white through the grey mist of early morning* Snow-sprinkled heights glittered here and there. The ravines smoked with vapour like cauldrons, and the gullies were packed with solid mist that looked like drifted snow. Lofty steep slopes, mantled with rich green forests to their very summits, swept majestically before our gaze, and extended far below, till lost to sight by the projecting edge of the giddy road upon which our coach was circling. Every turn revealed new beauty and intensified the grandeur of the land- scape ; while our eyes seemed to widen, and our whole frame to expand, in sympathy with the amplitude of the view. By- and-by the coach ascended a long hill, and from the high elevation we saw a strange sight. Thirty feet down the slope, there commenced a level white expanse of mist that completely concealed the country beneath on every side, isolating us as it were above the clouds,, on an island high in mid-air, and extending away out till it reached another mountain-range, the peaks of which, protruding through the mist, seemed little islets in the great sea of vapour. " Get out ! " our driver cried at last " there's a tree in the road." So we hastily jumped out and took charge of the horses, while he plunged into the bush in search of a wood- cutter. The tree, with its two thick limbs, had fallen out of An Eccentric Irishman. 285 the cutting on the roadside, and looked a formidable affair. But the driver returned with his man, and the two soon chopped away the under limb, while the coach drove slowly under the natural archway with only one inch to spare. Our anxiety during the few moments of this close shave was great. A little farther on another tree lay across the road a prodigious root which could neither be lopped nor lifted. No assistance being near, we had to unharness the horses and lead them over the thick trunk then, with the help of skilfully-made gradi- ents of logs, half shove, half lift the coach over, the vehicle descending with a groaning crash down the farther side of the obstruction. To complete the day's adventures, we stuck on a long hill. Though the road was well graded, yet the horses proved no better than bullocks. It required all our Australian experience to overcome the stubbornness of the team and the want of pluck in our stolid Scandinavian driver. It was quite dark when we got to Pohui, a roadside inn, where we learned that the rivers were up, and that our journey was stopped. After a good warm at the parlour fire, we had a fashionably late dinner in a woe-begone outhouse in the rear of the inn. An Irishman waited on us a most eccentric fellow, who also officiated as cook. He had a very high-flown manner of speech. " Gentlemin, little did I think of seeing such as you in this lone bush, here in this wild ; and though it may cost me my place, surs ; though I may be acting in direct opposition to my masthur, yet I'll rishk it, I'll rishk it! yes, come what will, I will make you a cup of tea !" The whole dinner was one long joke. " Did time permit, surs ; did the heat of the rapidly-lighting fire allow, gentlemin, I'd prepare you a plate of buttered toast." " By removing this obstructing plate, I may be able to deposit the potatoes." " In the cruet-stand you will find, in its apportioned place, the newly-mixed mustard." We were greatly amused, too, and felt highly flattered when the Irishman stepped up and said in a stage- whisper "I was once a gentlemin like any of you, surs." We were up betimes in the morning, finding the rain had abated, and left with a wish from the waiter that we might "reach our destined place of arrival in good safety." This day consisted principally in fording, though it was always the same river we came to the Esk, "where ford there was (next to) none." We crossed it forty-two times in ten miles, and as it was a turbulent, swollen river, you may imagine we had a very 286 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. interesting time of it. We simply zig-zagged up the channel of the stream, which here ran between high banks the coach travelling from one strip of shingle to another, sometimes cutting right across the river, sometimes going obliquely, and very often heading straight up against the swift current, which, running high and strong, on one occasion poured completely over the wheels and came into the coach. The flooded state of the rivers had washed away all the fords, and numbers of workmen, with spade and pickaxe, were to be seen starting off to make graded approaches on the different river-banks, that had been partially swept away. We came to one place where it was impossible to ford, the current having broken down the approaches, leaving a steep descent of unknown depth into the river. But as we had to get over somehow, we sounded and reached bottom with a moderately long sapling. In the middle of the river, a heavily-loaded dray was stuck. The horses had been taken out, and there the waggon stood surrounded by the rush of waters. We saw, however, that it was possible for our coach to ford. So we set to work filling up with stones and logs, and after long exertion made a kind of gradual slope into the river. Then we came on with coach and horses. The poor brutes tried to sniff and shy, but they stumbled on the logs and stones, and kicked all our wonderful engineering away, to our horror as we sat on the box, and with almost a sheer downward plunge the coach went with direful crashing splash into the river, almost on the top of the horses, and half turning over with the violence of the shock. Those outside were almost thrown off their seats, but managed to hold on till they reached the opposite shore. A careful examination of the coach showed that it had sus- tained little damage, so we resumed our journey. We had more bumping and jolting, and one jolt so severe that it threw my brother off the box-seat upon the sloping bank on the road- side, from whence he rolled upon the wheels, grazing and con- tusing his arm. Our eventful ride ended on a long shingle spit which runs out into the harbour of Ahuriri, the port of Napier. Along with the mails, we were rowed across in a small boat upon a lumpy sea, two or three waves coming on board and soaking us to the skin. The river Ahuriri, in high flood, was dyeing the harbour a reddish hue, and running with terrible current. It caught our boat and carried us with great force towards the opposite pier, some distance down, bringing us, despite all efforts, in the direction of a large moored vessel, Hawke's Bay Province. 287 against which the water was breaking heavily. The boatman, not being able to make any headway across the harbour, dropped the oars, and yelled for a rope from those on board, who were anxiously watching our progress. Before we could catch or see a line, the boat was swept at great speed round the ship's bows, and pitched upon a heap of round slimy rocks. Quicker than we had ever done anything before, we jumped out and scrambled to our feet. We had a narrow escape from being carried out to sea. It was a fit conclusion to our adven- turous journey. In consideration of the hard work we had on the road, and the assistance we had given to the driver, the coach agent actually offered us a considerable reduction in the fare. At the hotel here, two days afterwards, we met those of our party who had come from Auckland to Napier by sea. They were five days in a small steamboat, which at every unfavouring breeze had to run round some headland for shelter. Our folks said the coast was thoroughly explored, though it is not known that much has been added to the discoveries of Captain Cook and others. The town of Napier lies on the shores of a large indentation on the east coast of the North Island, Hawke's Bay, which gives its name to the Province. A little more than a century ago this part of New Zealand was first seen by a white man. On the 1 2th October 1769, Captain Cook arrived in Hawke's Bay in his ship the "Endeavour," intending to explore this district ; but a body of ninety natives, unacquainted with the great navigator, came off in five canoes and drove back the vessel's boats, which had tried to effect a landing. Napier is situated just about the scene of this little incident. It is a pleasant, bright-looking wooden town, skirting a clear, unbroken horse-shoe beach, stfaggling along the shore, but huddling up to the shelter of a headland, over which the houses thinly trickle till they join on the other side with the little port-town of Ahuriri. Of late years the town has been looking up. It is a thriving place, with a good stamp of people about it. The climate is delightful, and the town stands on a dry, healthy site. The province of Hawke's Bay, of which Napier is the capital, has a population of 9256. One cannot but think it strange to find a Provincial Council existing in a community this size While we were here, the Provincial Council was in full debate, voting hundreds of pounds for roads, and making as much of a storm as that thundering on their shores about a stone's-throw 288 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. off. There was also a great public meeting held to see whether Napier should or should not be created a municipality. The principal cause for this agitation, I think, was the fact of some wooden stables having been burned down one night, the water- supply not being equal to the occasion. The people argued that if there were an energetic public body, there would be no such remissness as to place the town in danger. Napier was positively frightened at this fire, for not only are the houses wooden, but the water-supply is by artesian wells dug about the town ; and though the folks can support a local parlia- ment, yet there is no such thing as a fire-engine within their borders. There are a great many retired military here colonels, majors, and captains created during the Maori war. A good story is told in illustration of the peculiar composition of Napier society. A colonel, going to a ball, hired a cab, and as luck would have it, the cabman, a retired captain, had also been invited to the dance. The colonel arrived, and shortly afterwards the cabman returned in full evening costume. About midnight, the colonel was observed leaning moodily in a corner, and a friend remarked : " Hullo ! what's up ? what's the matter?" " Matter ! " echoed the colonel, "why, I wanted to be home by eleven, and there's my confounded cabman engaged for three more dances ! " Napier is famed for its rearing of horses and cattle, while a line of boats run to Auckland and supply the market of that city with meat. Maories hold much of the land round about, and have leased it to the European. Some of it is sold, and much litigation has resulted. The irrepressible ownership- question crops up. This man of the tribe owns the land that man has a share in it so has this other; and so on. The Maori of to-day is a good enough fellow when he is well treated (which is a truism), but he is somewhat of a rogue where money is concerned. Cases illustrating this were tried not long ago in the Napier Court. An enterprising European bought some bush from a party of Maories, and erected a saw-mill upon the land. Other Maories who had kept in the background now stepped in, and said they also wanted payment, as they were the real owners. Of course there was resort to the law, but these natives were declared to be in the right as to proprietorship, and nine Maories got the extra purchase-money between them, while the saw-mill had latterly to be abandoned, as it could not pay. A man told us it was the same in smaller Napier. 289 matters. When he bought a pig or a fowl from the Maories, others would afterwards come forward and demand payment also. Very often the real owner would hold back, employing some one else to sell his pig, and then he would appear, saying, " That's mine pay me also." In Napier we came across an elderly gentleman, organist in one of the churches, who had led a luxurious London club-life in his day, and had come out sheep-farming to what he called, in his English phrase, the " wolds of New Zealand." This enterprise not being altogether successful, he had returned to his profession of music. It must have been peculiar for a man brought up to high life to find himself far from society in a remote part of the island, but we discovered several such instances in our journeyings, and they only prove that a long residence in a metropolis is compatible with a liking for a solitary life. Here we also met the Rev. Mr Sidey, formerly a clergyman in West Calder, Scotland, who came out to the salubrious climate of Hawke's Bay for the sake of his health, and is now pastor of a fine church, with possession of a nicely- situated manse, to which we received a very warm invitation. From his house we had an extensive view of the town, and on the way to it a bird's-eye view of the perfectly-shaped curving beach, with the waves roaring in long white line upon the shore. Big rollers swept in, each a massive wall of water some ten or twelve feet high, green and glittering, that curved over with a loud crack as if it were solid and brittle, falling shivered on the shingle, broken into leaping, dancing foam. We had two other capital views here or rather different aspects of the same landscape the snowy ranges back from Napier, shining pale in the brightest of moonlight, and standing out so clear, but at the same time seemingly so immaterial and so far away. The following morning early, we saw these white mountains changed to a bright pink in the first flush of glowing sunrise, with the fading moon glimmering yellow above them, and the inter- mediate country bathed in a transparent blue mist another of those views in which New Zealand bears the bell above all the other colonies. Our route now lay across the North Island from Napier to Wanganui by coach, a trip that occupied five days. As the road was only opened a few months, and had not yet made a great impression on the public mind, the journey was looked upon by folks as a tempting of Providence. Until quite recently, however, there was a good deal of romance and risk T 290 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. in this undertaking, both on account of the natural difficulties of this route and the unfriendliness of some of the native tribes. Just previous to starting, we heard that portions of the road had been blocked up by the Maories, and that if some griev- ances of theirs were not redressed, communication would be .interrupted, and the coach would have to make a long detour. Word came, too, that the rivers were up, and altogether the look of affairs was far from encouraging. The first stage was to Waipawa, forty-one miles. In the coach besides ourselves were two ladies, a silver-haired old dame, and a prim young married lady, spouse to a squatter, between whom arose an animated discussion on that unfailing theme, the domestic servant. How the two tongues wagged, and how the squatter's wife smote right and left, putting down all servant girls as pests ! " I don't know where to get a good one, I'm sure ! they're all good-for-nothing slatterns, the whole of them." Then she bent down her head and shot her eyes up to her vis-a-vis, looking as if she intended to probe her soul. The old lady, with sharp eyes, lowered her face also, and looked up at the other as if to pierce her through, and said, " I quite agree with you I'm sure I've dismissed four servants during the last three months what I'm looking for now is a nice girl that will consent to learn and do what I ask, and make herself obliging and generally useful about the house that's all I ask for." Infatuated old lady ! The road was good nearly all the way, and traversed some splendid fertile country, that cheered and gladdened the eye. There were one or two sheep stations also, and leather post- bags were thrown out at these places, as we went by a gate or a hut. The clearings in the bush at different parts reminded one greatly of similar portions of Canadian backwoods. We passed a native settlement of whares, and in an open part of the village a group of Maories sat in semi-circle, while an old man, once a powerful Hawke's Bay chief, stalked backwards and forwards in front of them, with a high white hat stuck on the back of his head, while he warmly spoke and gesticulated on some important subject of the day. Several other of these Maori settlements we passed, most of them engaged in the industry of drying Indian corn, which is spread on large sloping wooden frames for exposure to the sun. A considerable number of children were visible, which would appear to con- tradict the statement that the Maori race is dying out. In the remoter "kaingas," or small villages far from European influence, An Aged Bushman. 291 the proportion of children is very large, and gives promise of long continuance of the race. But according to Sir Donald M'Lean, the native Minister, the Maories in 1820 numbered 400,000, and now they are 40,000, only a tenth of that number. As long as they were kept embroiled in tribal wars and desul- tory conflicts with the settlers, the population thinned off wofully, but peace and isolation seem now to be nursing their numbers in many a quiet settlement. Schools have been pro- vided all over the island, and much money expended on the civilising of Maori children. The half-castes are an intellectual, well-formed race, and schools have been established for them also. Their leanings are more towards the European than the Maori, as shown during the progress of the war, though several at that time remained steadfast to their native relations. According to the Rev. Mr Taylor, a New Zealand missionary, "They should be educated and taken care of ; those totally neglected have become the most dangerous foes to the Govern- ment." Waipawa is an embryo country town, with stores and a hotel. Two new banks had just been u established " here that is, two rival banks had, in expectation of this place becoming lively, sent two managers here. They lived at this same hotel, helped each other peaceably to beef and mutton at dinner, and smoked in the verandah together most part of the day. One held his bank in the hotel-parlour, the other in the bar. The hotel was full of strangers, whose journeys had been delayed by floods. Walking in the bush, we met an elderly man, a rough bush- man, followed by his wife, who trudged after her lord, looking far older than he. The man carried a sack over his shoulder, had on a blue blouse and white trousers, and his head was covered with a slouched hat, the low-turned brim of which did not conceal the long white locks that flowed beneath it. come from Maidstone, in Kent," said he, with a strong English provincial accent " I've had eighteen children, and I reared ten of 'em under Squire Plummer at home. I came out here with young Squire Plummer ; but before that I drove Womb- well's Menagerie, and I'm not ashamed to own it." He led us into the bush till he brought us to a clearing in a green wild of matai timber, where stood his wooden home, which he had just completed in the space of one week. "I was flooded out^of my last place six years ago," said this energetic veteran" I've been flooded out two or three times, and my house went to wreck and ruin, so I've come here to make myself a new home." 292 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. He was seventy-three years of age, and yet the old fellow talked of beginning life, as it were. " You've come here," we said, in what we intended to be a humorous tone, " to spend in comfort and in honest industry the long future that lies before you?" "I reckon so," said he, " for my father died at 105, and my mother at 115 ! " Next afternoon we rejoined the coach, and safely crossed the Waipawa river. A Maori rode alongside us to show the driver a safe ford on the next river, Waipukurau, which was higher than the first. But our coloured friend failed as a pilot, for he brought us into deep water, against a submerged terrace of shingle, which the team could not pull the coach over till its living load was removed. So the Maori jumped off his horse and carried us one by one to dry land, which was no easy task, as some of the passengers were not by any means light-weights. We had now some miles of a terribly bad road, along the beds of rivers, over mires and sloughs of mud, that tried one's patience as much as they taxed one's nerves. Some flat table-land was a relief, and we rolled along in the dark. At last one or two lights came in sight, and we drove up to a wayside inn, the best of the genus we had seen for many a long day. The door was open, and even when some distance off we saw, far across the level, the blaze of a cheerful fire though all fires are cheerful when you are cold and hungry and fatigued. We were comfortably warmed, amazingly well fed with a meal of tea, chickens, roast pork, jam, and toast, and sufficiently refreshed by slumber in this model bush-inn, which we will advertise so far as to say that it is kept by a Scotchman of the name of Fergusson, who lives at " Fergusson's." In the old country Lords get their titles from their estates. Out in New Zealand a man's property is named after himself; so the hotel and half-dozen houses in this neighbourhood are called after our host Fergusson. There is of course a native name, and there are plenty of natives about here, who support the hotel and patronise it when " on the spree." There are from 150 to 200 living close by, and, between them, own 4000 sheep, for the Maories diligently pro- secute wool-growing and farming on their own account. As usual, we stayed here all night. There is not much inclination in New Zealand towards night travelling ; unlike Australia, where the lamp-flaring coach dashes on in the darkness through the apparently trackless bush. But New Zealand presents more natural difficulties and dangers than the common run of A Neiv Zealand Forest. 293 Australian country, and here you would not care to have, through the night, similar adventures to those you encountered during the day. Next section of the journey was commenced just before daybreak, and lay through miles of mire. It was a most filthy road, with yellow mud heaped up in great mounds on either side, over which we had to scramble and plod, with ever- increasing weight on our boots, while the horses slowly paddled through the long course of pea-soup that spread out before them. The coach wound up hill, with bush on every hand, and gloomy dells opening on either side at times, while we tramped wearily ahead. Looking back, we saw a strange combination of lights, for the moon, still shining bright, was glancing through the shades of the forest the five powerful coach lamps were effacing the tree-shadows thrown across the road, which, however, reappeared in the darkness at the vehicle's wake while over all this red glare of lamps and the silver glitter of the moon, the first rays of dawn were shedding a hopeful light. Amidst this partial gloom we stopped every now and then at some Scandinavian cottage, where letters were handed to ghost-like forms, and messages returned in outlandish tongues. There are many of these wild northern people about this district, engaged in clearing themselves homes in the bush. They earn a good livelihood, too, by making railway sleepers, for which they are paid one shilling each. These men are the advance-guard of settlement bush-skirmishers in the van of the army that is advancing to civilise the forest. We had breakfast at another of the comfortable roadside hotels of Hawke's Bay. The rain was still falling, as it had been falling all morning, but it cleared up before we started. We now drove through some superb New Zealand bush, to see which is one of the special reasons why everyone should not neglect undertaking this overland journey. The Australian bush is a park the New Zealand forest is a jungle. You can drive all round about the trees in Australia, dotted widely, as they frequently are, over smooth, grassy country, with many an open sunny glade ; but you cannot make your way through the dense undergrowth and close-standing timber of New Zealand. Coach-roads have to be forced along at the point of the axe. The road we were now travelling was simply a long lane cut sharply through these wilds, with straight walls of vegetation on either side. We entered upon the bush from plain, untimbered country. As a prelude came one or two 294 Kennedy 's Colonial Travel. bare, tall trunks ragged and leafless sentinels to the gateway of the woods. Then we were whirled into a bewildering fantasia of vegetation roulades and cadenzas of foliage playing round the steady, rhythmical, stately march of the leaden-hued trees, smooth and glistening like pillars, that shot up to a great height without showing stem or branch with lovely fern-trees appearing like grace-notes in the melodic progress of the grand lofty timber. Everything seemed to be growing on everything else. Green parasites wound up and around the trees, with vines and creepers flying like ropes from bough to bough, drooping in festoons at times, again hanging down like long halters from projecting limbs, while the " supple-jacks," coiling around the humid, cylindrical trunks, buried their heads like snakes in the foliage at the top. And what struck one was the absolute stillness that prevailed ; for, save the dull rumble of the wheels over tree-roots, the infrequent harsh cry of a kaka parrot circling overhead, or the cooing of a fantail pigeon as it flew down the sunny avenue of bush, there was nothing to break the solemn silence that reigned in the solitudes around. At intervals there appeared numbers of beautiful fowl, " pukekos," or Maori swamp-hens as they are called, with red heads, purple bodies, white-spreading tails, and long red legs, stepping daintily about as if quite tame, and flying very reluctantly away when the coach rolled towards them. Through the tall herbage, manuka scrub, and spiked toi-toi grass, there trotted, with wagging ears, stray wild pigs, descendants of those left long ago on the island by the practical Captain Cook, and which are now regarded as capital game by the hunter in search of exciting sport. Logs lay on the ground blood-stained with bright red splashes of fungus. The karaka tree spread its glossy ivy leaves ; the rimu hung its graceful, willow-like foliage. The beautiful wheke- ponga, or tree-fern, reared its exquisite form, rising from twenty to thirty feet high a long black stem suddenly expanding into an umbrella of delightful spreading fronds, which sheltered its elegant tracery in the most retired nooks, as if to tempt one to look in. The colours in the bush did not call for much remark, the prevailing tint being a bright, humid greenness ; but the attractiveness of the New Zealand forests lies more in the beauty of form than the charm of colour. CHAPTER XXII. CROSSING THE MANAWATU GORGE A MAORI GRIEVANCE WANGANUI WINTER IN OTAGO LEAVING NEW ZEALAND. AT the great Manawatu Gorge we had a trying adventure. This is the line of separation between the provinces of Hawke's Bay and Wellington. Here the coach goes no farther, and each passenger is slung across the mighty chasm, which is 750 feet wide, sitting on a couple of planks suspended from a wire-rope 200 feet above the level of the river. Whether lady or gentle- man, you have to get astride this frail support and hold on by both hands to a small line overhead. It is a perilous aerial flight. Very often one of the weaker sex refuses to cross, and the coachman has to go with her, holding the poor woman firmly on the seat, to prevent her falling down from fear or giddi- ness. Occasionally men are not free from this pardonable timidity, and we met one fellow a short way back, travelling towards Wellington rid Napier a wonderfully roundabout journey for the express purpose of avoiding this gorge. One of my sisters and I took position on the planks, and the two men at the windlass launched us into space. At first we kept our gaze steadily fixed on the opposite bank, which seemed to get farther and farther off; but after a few seconds we ventured to cast our eyes down to the seething river, the roar of which came up faintly to our great elevation. Fear never entered our heads, and it was not till a good while after- wards that we realised our full danger. We whirred down the rope, which hung curving in the centre by reason of its weight, and then were slowly drawn up the other side. Now and again the working-gear gives way about this part of the proceedings, and the unfortunate traveller is left suspended high over the raging torrent ; but on this occasion everything went smoothly, and we were soon hauled across. Then one of my brothers came over sitting astride between our luggage, a box in front of him and a large trunk behind him ; and we heard after- wards that, when he observed these articles to be very shaky, 296 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. the men replied, " Oh, hold them in with your knees," which was rather a difficult matter, seeing he was not also gifted with knees in his back. To us who had crossed, what an insig- nificant creature he looked a human spider slowly crawling along a gossamer line. But the plank was moving at a good speed, and came violently against the bank, the concussion of the luggage almost knocking the breath out of my brother's body. The signal was given, and the apparatus went back to fetch the elder and weightier of the passengers, who was drawn over in safety. Then the last two of our family started, and had advanced successfully half-way, when a jerk of the hauling rope whipped off my sister's hat, which swooped down into the white foam of the river, where it floated a black speck far beneath. With this exception, no mishap occurred ; and we have since heard that the primitive board and pulley have given place to an iron cage, which will lend an additional feeling of security. A buttress bridge, also, is being built across the river, with massive piers, strong enough, as we thought, to resist the encroachments of a sea ; but not by any means unnecessary, for the Manawatu, running in this com- pressed channel, very often rises forty feet in a single night. The gorge itself was peculiar in its grandeur. Unlike similar scenery in Otago, which depended mainly on its vast proportions and desolate ruggedness, this had the attraction of luxuriant bush. The gorge was so steep that the river appeared to be brawling in a narrow pass. The heights, rearing them- selves giddily on either hand, were concealed by thickest vege- tation the immense forests, diminished to shrubbery by dis- tance, and starred by peeping fern-trees, sweeping down like a richly-patterned green carpet upon the face of the precipices. Heavy rain-clouds, brooding over the gorge, trailed deeply into the tree-tops, and through these smote piercing gleams of sun- shine, that, striking the opposite heights, lit up the bright ver- dure with flakes of still more vivid green. The gorge shot out headlands and bluffs the splended vista stretching along till it ended in abrupt high portals, through which we saw an open window of white sky, and the distant low-lying country framed in like a picture by the natural gateway. The road now skirted one side of this gorge at an elevation of 300 feet a mere shelf of a road, only eighteen inches wider than the coach, and cut out of the solid rock. It tried our courage far more than the wire-rope. There were only two horses, and the coach was small, to admit of turning the curves. The Matunvatu Gorge. 297 On one side the wheels would be almost grazing the rocky cutting on the other, skirting the precipice. The drivt a young man, who drove so coolly that all his nerves seemed to have been extracted from him by a surgical operation. He told us the road was so dangerous that the economical pro- prietors had put on an old coach ; but we are inclined to regard this as a fabrication. When we came to a corner, he drove the horses out, as if going into space, and just when their front hoofs were slipping into the abyss, he dexterously wheeled the coach round. Through gaps in the trees that sprung out from the banks we saw the river rushing those hundreds of feet below. We could almost see it by looking straight down the spokes of the wheels. Hundreds of feet above us towered the circling heights. We never felt so strongly that it was every man's duty to ease the brute creation by getting out and walking ; but the eye of the driver was upon us, and our honour at stake. A horse- man met us, and he had to stand quietly, at a wider portion of the road, till we had driven cautiously past him. Here and there shelving rocks jutted over our heads. At the softer cuttings the earth crumbled down by the vibration of the coach, and at one spot lay a heap of stones that had fallen out on the driver's last trip, and almost finished his career. But to us the most dangerous thing seemed to be the waterfalls that poured over the road, interrupted in their headlong rush to the river. They streamed over the track in a way to make any horse attempt the Highland fling, but our pair quietly splashed through them. The larger waterfalls, that would have worn down the road, were literally boarded up by wooden shutters, that flung back the stream upon the rocks and sent it rushing through a culvert. This hazardous road is only four and a half miles long, but nine men are employed all the year round clearing and repair- ing it. Making the exit of the gorge, we went in a boat across the river, which was running in a way to have opened the eyes of any but the hardened traveller. Our farther journey took us past more settlements of Scandinavians, poor creatures fighting with the rough, tough bush their patches of cleared land all peculiarly fenced, and their houses all alike in their un- painted newness. Many carpenters earn a livelihood by travelling through the country and erecting dwellings for these new arrivals. At the township of Palmerston we heard definitely that the Oroua bridge had been blocked by the Nga-tika-whate tribe, and that the short cut to Wanganui was 298 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. impossible. There was no help for it but to go the long detour. The Maori grievances all centred round one special block of land, one of a number of reserves. The natives wished for power to lease and sell land, like the white man. An old Act of Parliament prevents the selling of land save through Govern- ment, and the Maories kick at this. The whole affair seemed to have been instigated by storekeepers, who had advanced money and provisions to the native land-owners on the security of these reserves, and in the hope of being ultimately able to purchase them. A short time previously, a Scotsman, Macdonald by name, who had worked himself into the good graces of the natives and been elected chief, shot one of the horses of a mail-coach that attempted to cross the bridge, and this Scotch Maori now lay in Wellington awaiting trial. When the district engineer went to the scene of the dispute, he found a strong four-railed fence erected across the bend of the river. A gate had been put up and strongly padlocked, and trees were felled across all the tracks through the bush. A large company of old women and children had been stationed to watch the bridge. A notice, also, had been put up by the Maories in prominent places : " On and after 25th June, the road will be stopped until the disputes are settled. No offer of money will be accepted as toll." So the natives were really determined to have what they thought justice. Meanwhile we travelled forty mjjes extra, breathing indigna- tion all the while upon the old Maori chief of the tribe, his right-hand man Macdonald, and the whole cantankerous pack of natives. The road was latterly forcibly opened by the armed constabulary, and Macdonald received three years' imprisonment ; while our own private revenge consisted in " transporting " the old chief by carte de visite to our friends in Edinburgh. Twenty-four miles of a horse-tramway brought us to Foxton, which place was busy with natives going down by coach to give evidence in Macdonald's trial. Here also we had reached the other side of the island, and could hear the waves loudly rolling on the West Coast as we had heard them a few days before on the East. Next morning we left for Wanganui. One of the coach-pas- sengers was a boy who had run away from a ship in which he had been a midshipman. He appeared about fourteen years of age, and was engaged in reading a novel. The young exile had left Leith but a year ago, and told us, in a cool, careless manner, that he intended making his own fortune in the world, New Zealand Scenery. 299 and was now on the way to a sheep-station. He appeared to be of the incorrigible school-boy stamp one who stood always at the bottom of his class, played truant, and was up to every mischief and did not strike us as being of the stuff from which good colonists are made. We travelled over lonely plains, sprinkled with homesteads and Maori pahs, fields and native settlements, whares and villas, white man and brown mixing peaceably in their avocations. We very frequently met natives in large parties, all of them well-dressed, and riding on horseback to see their friends. For the Maories are a very sociable people. They make visits, eat, converse, and go home their friends come and see them, eat, drink, talk, leave, and so on. This is the sum and sub- stance of Maori society. We came to some striking country. A dark blue landscape spread in front of us, and our old friends Ruapehu and Tongariro presented their bold white masses under a dull heavy sky. Ahead of us, and right at the extremity as it were of the long straight road, a small snow-clad pyramid pierced through the thick mists of the dark-lying country Mount Egmont ! rising from an unseen base, and seventy miles distant as the crow flies. Even our driver was entranced with the prospect, being the first driver, to our knowledge, who ever had an eye for scenery. The country was well taken up with farms and pasture-land, English grasses everywhere usurping the original brown herbage, though practical and commonplace looked those patches of bright grass compared with the native toi-toi and general wildness ! Coming to broken country "Here," said the driver, "the people are sheep-struck ;" and when we wondered they did not go in for grain, he told us the farmers down in Canterbury can raise crops, ship them off to the North Island, and sell cheaper than the folks on the spot. So recourse is had to sheep-rearing, which pays well. We next crossed a river, the Wai-something- or-other, which has the peculiarity of being impregnated with sulphur and tainted with alum an unhealthy river, in which no fish, no life of any sort, can exist It has its origin on the south side of Tongariro, and is split into two streams by a rock one in its course becoming this sulphur river, the other flowing northward as the clear, fresh, important Waikato. Then we sighted the river Wanganui, and drove along one bank of it, while on the opposite side stretched the town that bears its name. It was a unique, picturesque sight. Houses and shops with big signs lined the shore in front of them, 300 Kennedy s Colonial Travel. Maori tents, canoes, produce, small wharves, and the bright shining river while behind lay the body of the town, with church spires cropping up, and at the back of all, clumps of green hills, on one of which stood the fortified " Block House," the sign of war, disquiet, and shelter. We crossed into the middle of the town by a magnificent iron bridge. This structure, for which the place has been considerably taxed, was opened in 1871, is 609 feet long, has 775 tons of iron in it, and cost ^35> 000 - We lived at a hotel overlooking the Market Square. This is rather rough and bare at present, with more black sand than business about it, but in time will be busy with people and traffic. The country about here is very sandy the hills, the roads, the streets are composed of a dark kind of sand. In the centre of the square stands a neat white monument, erected to the Maories who fell fighting against the Hau-Hau rebels in a battle not far from Wanganui. The inscription runs : " In memory of the brave men who fell at Motua in defence of Law and Order against Fanaticism and Barbarism." There is much here to remind a person of the Maori war. Besides the "Block House," with its loop-holes and musket-holes, there are the many monuments one sees in the churchyards, reared to those slain during that deplorable struggle. From the hotel we had a fine view of the river, with its high cliffy banks cut by the current, and the verdant hills swelling all around. The river banks were occupied by Maories, who camped here and landed their produce. At night the glare of their fires and the dark outlines of their tents were very striking. All day you could see their heavily-loaded canoes upon the river the men one minute paddling industriously, and making good progress the next stopping to have a smoke, and drifting with the tide. Intermittent energy is the bane of the Maori. A great many natives were in town, raising money on the strength of leased lands. Some of the chiefs were fine fellows, with glorious heads, and robed in long black cloaks dotted with yellow tufts. Not a few of the natives aspired to be vocalists, and kept the town lively with songs, which to the European ear were very like the lusty strains of a man crying " Coals ! " As showing their aims at the highest civilisation, the fellows have clubbed together and purchased a four-horse coach, in which they drive about, to the no small astonishment and merriment of the white settlers. The Maories here are " Friendlies," and, like all the tribes in the south part of the island, are an inferior Scotsmen in ll'ei/i^einui. 301 people to the high-born aristocratic natives of the Waikato and the north generally. Long years ago the Wanganui Maories were ground under by the more powerful Waikatoes, were plundered and pillaged by them, their goods taken, and their persons roasted and devoured. No wonder the advent of the British was hailed as a deliverance. Ever since that, these natives have stuck by us, fought in our wars against the dis- affected tribes, and on more than one occasion saved Wanganui from destruction. There is here an extraordinary nest of North Britons. The Scottish element even penetrates into the bill-of-fare of the hotel, and you are supplied with porridge, despite the fact that the cook is a Chinaman. Imagine " parritch " made by an Asiatic ! The Scotch people were most of them characters in their way. At home, men are generally stereotyped, seem made in one common mould, with not much opportunity to develop peculiarities, but here, as in all new countries, there is independence of thought and action. Some of the Scotsmen even prided themselves on the way they had kept their dialect intact for many years displayed their accent as they might have done some fine old wine ! One Wanganui man went home to Scotland, but came back again gladly to New Zealand. People in the old country were too formal and stuck-up for him. He could not stand the frigid zone of home, but came back joyfully to the freedom of this part of the world, where everyone can do what he likes and how he pleases, without consulting anybody. A glorious country surely ! Many people we met were farmers, all prosperous, with everything good to say about the land, but grumbling sorely at what they called the " pest of pheasants." These birds have become as great a plague as the rabbits in Western Otago. The climate of Wanganui is all that could be desired ; though being the winter-time wh,en we were here, the weather was very change- able wind, rain, and sunshine alternating with great regu- larity. One night, between eleven and twelve, the cry of "Fire ! was raised in the hotel. " Who's that ? " cried the landlord " who's that shouting fire what fool is that, eh ? " and we could hear the whole bar emptying out into the backyard. Lanterns flashed upon our window curtains. Then we heard a female voice loudly whispering : "John, John, have you got on your I mean, are you are you dressed at all, because there's fire, fire, fire oh dear me, me, me, what's to be done ? run, John, run ! " 3