Part 10

We can easily understand the fondness of the Maoris for the water. They were a race of islanders and fishermen, never really happy unless their houses were built close to the water’s edge. This determined their mode of settlement; they only took to the dry land of the interior as a refuge from their enemies. So we found them, when first we entered the island, scattered along the narrow part of the Fish, where are bays and inlets in abundance, and along the coasts of the Bay of Plenty and the Taranaki Bight. Lake, river, and marsh were their dwelling places; and when we find them established of their own will in the interior, it is on the banks of Lake Taupo, a small sea in their eyes. The white settler wanted, in the main, the drier districts for his farms and cattle, that is, the parts of least value to the Maori; but none the less, settlement was not effected without a generation of trouble and a long period of petty warfare.

Down to 1830, except for the missionaries, the Maoris knew us chiefly through the trading ships which visited the islands, and the few white men, not real settlers, who lived the life of the natives and sometimes took part in their clan feuds. The main occupation of the Maoris was fighting among themselves; and it was the petition of some chiefs in the Bay of Islands for protection from another clan which first led to the dispatch of a British official from New South Wales. This official had no real power and depended for his information as to the natives entirely on the missionary interpreters. Then a Frenchman intervened, and in 1835 proclaimed himself sovereign of New Zealand, apparently on the strength of some land which he had bought years before at Hokianga. This led to a league of the northern tribes, headed by the missionaries, which demanded British protection.

Next we hear of a French bishop setting up a mission at Hokianga, and a French syndicate buying land in Banks Peninsula, in 1838; while the English Land Company, started by Gibbon Wakefield, dispatched its first batch of colonists in the next year. As the result of these movements, the British Government was forced to take action, and the Governor of New South Wales promptly proclaimed our authority over the whole of New Zealand. His agent, Captain Hobson, concluded the Treaty of Waitangi, at the Bay of Islands, in 1840; by this agreement the native chiefs recognised British suzerainty. South Island was occupied just in time, as Hobson’s officers reached the Banks Peninsula only four days in advance of a French warship and party of French colonists. So that it was really France which hurried us on to the effective occupation of New Zealand.

The later history of our relations with the natives all hinges on the land question. The New Zealand Company, and many private speculators as well, bargaining through interpreters, believed that they had bought enormous areas of land for a mere nothing: the Maoris imagined that they had sold very little. Moreover, it was very doubtful who really had the power to sell the land, since the waste lands of the Maoris were all held in common. To settle the disputes the Home Government sent out a special Commissioner who decided that most of the bargains could not be allowed to stand. Even so the Maoris found it hard to appreciate our ideas as to sale and possession of land. There was endless trouble until Sir George Grey was sent over from South Australia in 1845, learnt the native language, and reduced both sides to order. For comparatively small sums he succeeded in buying gradually those parts of the country which were most essential to the white settlers, while leaving plenty for the support of the original inhabitants; for we must remember that the Maoris were very few in proportion to the area of the country. Grey was popular with the Maoris, and when he left, in 1855, the country was fairly well organised.

But the land question was not yet finally settled. In 1857, the Maoris tried to federate under a native king, the main object of the association being to oppose the further sale of land to the white settlers. The whole of Central Maoriland, east and west of Lake Taupo, was unfriendly to us. The trouble came to a head over a land claim in the Taranaki district, and the result was over ten years of raids and casual fighting which could hardly be called organised war, since it moved from district to district, and the different tribes had no common policy or unity. As the sections were subdued from time to time, the usual penalty inflicted was confiscation of land; so that by 1870 the whole of the coast strip, from the north of Hawkes Bay round by Wellington to the Mokau River on the west, was in our possession. So, too, was all the land on both sides of the Lower Waikato, and a narrow fringe along the Bay of Plenty. Thus there was practically a ring fence put round Central Maoriland, and until quite recently there was no connexion between Wellington and Auckland across this isolated block. Sir George Grey, who had returned as Governor, in 1861, was largely responsible for laying down the lines on which the Maori problem was finally and successfully solved.

One interesting result of the war was that Wellington became the capital instead of Auckland. Auckland was the original settlement, moved from the Bay of Islands in 1842, and marked out by Hobson as the future capital. By its position it divided the tribes of the north from those of the south, and this was a great advantage in the early days of settlement. Port Nicholson, later Wellington, was founded in the same year by colonists of the New Zealand Company; while New Plymouth, in Taranaki, was settled in 1841. So we have three original and contemporary settlements, Hawkes Bay being split off from Wellington later. We have already seen a similar process in South Island. After 1865, the population of South Island increased very rapidly, until it exceeded that of North Island, while the Maoris in the latter were thought to be as numerous as the white people. It was inevitable that the capital should be brought nearer the centre of power of the white population, and so, in 1865, Wellington was chosen as the capital by a committee of Australians to which the question was referred.

We have seen the importance of the Taupo district in past history, and how throughout, as in South Island, the structure of the country has profoundly influenced its development and the relations of the settlers with the Maoris. If instead of travelling up the trunk line of railway we had continued along the coast to New Plymouth, we should have realised the meaning of the purchase and confiscation of the narrow strip all round. We noticed before how the rivers radiate from the Taupo district in three directions to the sea; but in their upper courses they are of no use, since they flow between forest-clad hills, in deep gorges, where the stream is often broken by rapids, such as 44 we see here, on the Upper Waikato. The river up here does not seem to be of much value for navigation, and though the scenery is beautiful the river valley is not attractive to the settler. Lower down it is different.

We may reach the coast by following the line of the Wanganui, the most beautiful river in New Zealand. For scores of miles we rush down, in the little launch. In one reach the river is swift but smooth, running between sloping, densely forested banks; in another steep fern-clad cliffs close in to form a gorge through 45 which the water foams and swirls in rapids. Above, we may catch 46 sight of a Maori village; all the way down we meet canoes, slowly poling against the swift current; while lively parties of Maoris board us at every landing. Below Pipiriki the scenery changes, and near the sea we pass through open level country dotted with sheep and dairy farms, and these are steadily pushing the forest rim further back. Along the coast strip there is a whole string of small agricultural towns which suggest to us that the country round is of great value to the farmer. It is the same all the way to New Plymouth which lies under the shadow of Mount Egmont, a huge detached volcanic cone. Everywhere, in the clearings by the railway, are prosperous-looking dairy farms, the Taranaki district being specially famous for the quantity and quality of its dairy produce. Why is this so? The district is warm, it is also moist, as it lies on the west coast; in fact Mount Egmont enjoys the heaviest rainfall in the whole island. Here is a farm 47 in Taranaki with the mountain in the distance, and here we have 48 a near view of the great cone.

The economic progress of North Island, so far as we have seen 49 it, has consisted largely in the occupation of the lowlands near the river mouths, and the gradual clearing of the forest further inland--a rather different forest from that of South Island, since the climate is warmer and drier. To open up the country for farming we had to reduce the hunting grounds of the Maori, and even to drain, in spite of his opposition, some of his favourite marshes. As a result of the settlement we find in the south-east, south and south-west, butter, wool, meat and timber produced in large quantities; while in the centre we have nothing but the scenery and some forest as yet untouched.

If we think of the products which are most valuable to New Zealand at the present day, we shall find that with the exception of timber they have been introduced from abroad by the white settlers and were unknown to the Maoris. But the marshland, dear to the Maori heart, produces one plant which was necessary to the natives in the past and is still very useful to us. This is the New Zealand flax, though it is more like hemp than the flax from which linen is made in the northern hemisphere. The Maoris wove the fibre of this plant into clothes. Here we see the long 50 blade-like leaves being cut in the swamp; we follow it to the mills where it is unloaded and sorted into lengths. Inside the mill it is put through various processes until the fibre finally appears as a rope or bale of fine white twine ready for the 51 market. In this form it is sent from the mill all over the world and commands prices as high as Manila hemp with which perhaps we are more familiar.

We will now leave the south and pay a short visit to the northern districts. Here the conditions are somewhat different. There is gold to be found at the base of the Coromandel Peninsula, and it is mined largely from the quartz rock, not merely washed from the alluvium as in South Island. This has led to the growth of a group of small mining towns. There is coal, too, in the basin of the Waikato and in the districts north of Auckland. The presence of these minerals in itself would lead us to expect a difference between the north and south of the island; but the difference extends further, to the vegetable products of the soil. We are moving out of the west wind region into the zone where, as in Victoria, the greater part of the rain falls in the mild winter, and the summer is dry and hot though tempered by the nearness of the sea. It is a land where the orange and the vine grow well, in great contrast to the cool and moist region in the south of South Island. Many people find the change from Auckland to Dunedin or Invercargill very trying to the constitution.

North Auckland has its forests, but they are different from those of the south, for here and here alone grows the Kauri pine. Here 52 is pictured the life of the tree. First we see it growing proudly 53 in the forest; next the lumbermen are at work on the huge trunk; 54 finally the logs are hauled away, and at any of the little ports of the peninsula we may see the timber ships loading; here, for instance, is a Norwegian sailing ship taking in a cargo for 55 Liverpool. The Kauri pine is responsible too for a curious local industry. The forests of the past have left masses of gum buried in the swamps, and many labourers are employed in spearing or digging for it. They become very expert in finding likely spots in which to probe. Here we have a group of Croatian diggers ready 56 to set out for the day’s work; notice the long slender spears which they carry and the great swamp saw for digging out the gum. We may see them scraping the gum and then follow them home in the evening over the desolate plain to their primitive camp. 57 It is a strange industry carried on by these foreigners, and the life seems hard, but the resin is one of the most useful for making our varnishes.

We have already noticed the great number of bays and inlets along the long northern neck of the island. In the far north is the Bay of Islands, the site of the earliest settlement, represented 58 now only by the small town of Russell. Fifty miles further south we have the deep inlet of Whangarei Harbour, where a port and a short railway line mark the presence of coal in the country behind. Finally, on Waitemata Harbour, a western arm of the wide Hauraki Gulf, stands Auckland, the former capital and still the 59 largest town in New Zealand. The population of the city with its suburbs is now over a hundred thousand. Only eight miles away by rail is Onehunga, on Manukau Harbour, a gulf almost landlocked 60 but opening into the waters of the Tasman Sea.

The best way to appreciate Auckland is to approach it from the sea. As we steam along the coast from the north, on our left is the curiously shaped Rangitoto Island, an extinct volcano; on our right is a long peninsula, with two low rounded hills, also volcanic, joined together by a low neck of land on which stands the suburb of Devonport. Across this neck we get a brief glimpse of the city standing on two groups of small hills with narrow valleys running down to the harbour between them. Then we turn round the North Head and suddenly the whole bay, two miles broad, opens out before us. On our left are the residential suburbs of Remuera and Parnell, with houses and gardens running down to the water’s edge; further up the bay is the main city with its long quays busy with traffic, and large steamers anchored in the deep channel. Beyond are more suburbs, and we can follow the winding inlet for fifteen miles through beautiful scenery which reminds us somewhat of Port Jackson. On the north side again another city is growing up, so that Auckland seems to be built round a great lake, open at the two ends. The air is clear and free from smoke and everywhere the sparkling blue water reflects the bright sunshine. Here we see Auckland, looking across the water from 61 Devonport, and here we look down on it from Mount Victoria. 62

Auckland, for its beauty, has been styled the Naples of the South, and, like Naples, it has its volcanoes. We have noticed some of these already, and in the neighbouring country over sixty small cones, such as the one before us, can be counted within a 63 radius of ten miles. Even the hills on which the city stands are partly built up of volcanic debris. Fortunately for Auckland the volcanoes are no longer active, and it lacks also the picturesque dirt and squalor of Naples. It is modern, clean and prosperous. It has also something more than beautiful scenery to recommend it. Though it suffered in some ways by the removal of the capital to Wellington, it is still, and is likely to remain the chief port-of-call in the Dominion. It is near to Sydney and is the natural centre for the trade of the neighbouring Pacific islands. It is the last port of departure for vessels sailing between Australia and America; and when the Panama Canal is finished, it will stand on the shortest route from the eastern United States to Sydney and Melbourne, and an alternative route to the Suez Canal for the United Kingdom and the whole of Western Europe. It is the chief link connecting New Zealand with the outer world, and a fit point of departure for our final cruise among the islands to the north.

LECTURE VIII

FIJI AND THE WESTERN PACIFIC

We started our tour with the great continental land-mass of Australia; we shall end it with a visit to some of the many hundred scattered islands of the Pacific which are under British 1 control and protection. North-east from Auckland, for a thousand miles, we steam through the open ocean, sighting no land except perhaps the lonely Kermadec Islands, which are, as we have seen, attached to the Government of New Zealand, until we reach the fringe of the many groups of coral islands and reefs which fill so much of the Western Pacific. We shall touch first at Tonga Tabu, the southernmost and largest of the Friendly Islands, as Captain Cook called them, which lie just north of the Tropic of Capricorn and rather more than halfway round the globe eastward from London.

At Auckland we left behind us hills and fiords; on our right as we enter this group is the small but high volcanic island of Eua, the only one in the whole group which contains a river; the main island, Tonga Tabu, or Holy Tonga, lies on our left, and has a very different aspect. A low mass, green with what prove to be coconut palms, rises out of white surf and spray breaking over reefs of coral rock. We round a low headland and thread our way through winding channels among the reefs; on one side is the low mainland, on the other a string of green islets capping the reefs. After anchoring in the roadstead for a visit from the 2 doctor we are hauled alongside the little ferro-concrete wharf. Beyond is a picturesque white town, Nukualofa, the capital of the 3 island.

At the wharf half the population seems to be gathered to meet us. Some are clothed, native fashion, in the famous Polynesian mats or in the bark-cloth called _tapa_, or even in cotton; others are in European dress. The town with its white houses and verandas looks quite civilised. The inhabitants remind us of the New Zealand Maoris, though their colour is somewhat lighter; in fact, both peoples belong to the same great family, the Polynesians, or light-brown people of the Pacific, which is spread over many of the island groups which lie to the north-east and east of Tonga. It is this race which roused the admiration of early voyagers in these regions, both for its physical appearance and its character.

The Friendly Islands, though a British Protectorate, and, as regards all matters in which European interests are involved, under the jurisdiction of the High Commissioner of the Pacific, still have a native king and Parliament. The inhabitants are Christians, and are in a sense the most school-taught people in the Pacific. They seem to delight especially in mathematics and music, while shorthand is their usual method of writing. Tonga was the last of the independent kingdoms to come under European control. It was left to us as the result of our negotiations with Germany, at the end of the nineteenth century, and is now practically an integral part of our Empire in the Pacific. During the fifty years before we assumed control, it had made rather remarkable progress, under its native ruler, King George Tubou I., in the adoption, or perhaps the imitation, of Western ideas. This was largely due to the Wesleyan missionaries, and especially to the work of one missionary who occupied the post of Prime Minister.

We will now land and pay a call on the father of the present 4 king. He receives us in civilised fashion on the veranda of his house, but we notice that chairs are provided only for the guests; the rest sit on the ground in native fashion. A bowl of _kava_ is brewed for us by pounding, squeezing and straining out the juice of a root of a plant belonging to the family of the pepper-worts. It is the native substitute for alcohol, the use of which by any but white people is strictly forbidden in Tonga. Without _kava_ drinking, no social ceremony is considered complete, even to-day; and it has played an important part in the political and religious gatherings of the past.

Let us now look round the island. It is only about thirty miles (2) long and ten wide, shaped rather like the human foot, with two bays running far inland in the broadest part. The streets and the sea front of Nukualofa are mostly covered with short grass, and the town is partly hidden in the groves of coconut palms. It is the same all over the island. In the drier season we can follow broad grass tracks, for the most part running round the island; on both sides of us is a dense growth of palms, bananas, and tropical trees, such as we see in the picture before us. 5 Everything is moist and green and flat; yet, in Tonga Tabu, as in all the islands of this particular group, except Eua, we find no rivers, since the island is merely a block of coral rock, with a thin covering of rich soil, raised a few feet above the level of the sea. It is a form of coral island very common in this part of the Pacific.

We now leave Tonga Tabu for the northern islands of the group. Our decks are crowded with passengers. The natives are fond of travelling, and camp out on our vessel with a miscellaneous collection of luggage and food, including a number of pigs. We are bound for the Haapai Group, through a mass of small islets and foaming reefs; but away to the west rise several lofty volcanoes, some of which are still active. We are touching here one of the great volcanic lines of the world, a line which we have already seen continued in New Zealand. Off one of these islands, Tofua, was the scene of the famous mutiny of the _Bounty_.

We come to anchor on the leeward side of Haapai, at the one town, called Lifuka. There is no wharf here, and we lie a long way from the shore, as we see in this picture. We may land in the launch 6 or in one of the native boats which come out to meet us; and we 7 can survey the whole island in a short walk, as although it is five miles long it is less than two miles wide at the point where Lifuka stands. There is the same rich foliage and tropical fruit as in Tonga Tabu, but if we cross the island to the windward side we shall see a difference from our calm anchorage on the west. Here the south-east Trade Wind is blowing on-shore and the rollers are pounding incessantly and breaking into surf against 8 the coral rocks. It is a contrast which we find in most of the islands in this region.