Part 9

From Greymouth another line of rail and coach will take us through another famous gorge on a zigzag course to Nelson on Tasman Bay. We realise that communication in this part of the island is very difficult, and we shall find that the isolation of the different areas of settlement has been an important factor in the political development of New Zealand.

Greymouth, on a small artificial harbour at the mouth of the river, carries on a trade in gold, coal, and timber; Westport, further north, owes its existence mainly to coal, though there are also gold mines in the country behind it. Hokitika, which we can reach by a short railway journey, southward from Greymouth, is also the outlet of a gold district. The coal in this district of Westland is of good quality, and some day may give rise to a large industrial population; at present it is mined chiefly for export. Here we see the little township of Brunner, with its 58 coal mines; notice the forest and mountain in the background. Round Nelson there is a strip of sheltered lowland noted for its agriculture and fruit growing; as it was easily reached, and near the line of traffic through Cook Strait, the district with its fertile soil and mild climate was one of the earliest to attract settlers. Here is a view of Nelson on its little plain ringed in 59 by bare hills.

The mountainous north-east corner of the island, now the district of Marlborough, was difficult of access; so for a long time it had no separate existence, but was merely part of the larger 60 province of Nelson; but now we may reach it easily by steamer and might spend many days exploring the inner coast and bays of the Sounds which penetrate deeply into the land. These Sounds are different from those which we visited in the south-west of the island. They are broad, lake-like expanses of calm water, backed by forested hill slopes, with here and there clearings and farms near the water’s edge. The early whalers established themselves here, and to-day it is a favourite haunt of the yachtsmen. Here is a view of part of Pelorus Sound. 61

If we look at the structure of the island, we now see that there were three detached areas favourable for early settlement; Nelson in the north, Canterbury in the middle, and Otago in the south. All these were occupied separately, between the years 1840 and 1850, and the only means of communication between them was by sea. We can understand why at first these districts formed independent Provinces, each with its own local Parliament. Indeed, for a few years, even the southern part of Otago enjoyed a separate existence as Southland. The provinces still remain as provincial districts for certain purposes of local government, though Westland, between the Alps and the sea, has been split off from Canterbury, and Marlborough, as we have noted, from Nelson.

Among the cities Christchurch and Dunedin still stand alone with over sixty thousand inhabitants and two of the colleges of the University of New Zealand; while the greater part of the trade of the island passes through their ports. The districts behind them also contain the great majority of the sheep reared in the island. Next in importance to these cities is Invercargill, with less than twenty thousand inhabitants; while no other town has more than ten thousand. These numbers may seem small to us, but we must remember that they are large in proportion to the total population of New Zealand, which, including the Maoris, was less than a million in 1906. In Christchurch, in addition to the Cathedral and University College, we find a Supreme Court of the Dominion; and here we may see also the old Provincial Council Buildings, a remnant of the former system of government.

Though these capital cities have attracted relatively large populations, yet there is not that enormous concentration of life and wealth in a single city which we noticed in some of the Australian States. The sea is partly responsible for this. The population tends to scatter in a fringe along the coasts, since the natural means of access to the agricultural and mining districts of the interior is from the nearest point on the sea-board. There is no great concentration of routes at any one point, and though Christchurch and Dunedin have a long start, many of the smaller towns are growing rapidly, through the development of the areas behind them. As we have seen, the whole structure of the country is against concentration, and the scattering of the population may become more rather than less marked as the newer districts are opened up from the coast inwards. The geographical conditions which controlled early settlement are still operative to-day.

We have treated of the settlement of South Island as though the first settlers found the country uninhabited and were free to develop its resources as seemed best to them, with no difficulties in the way except those due to climate and structure. We have made no mention of the aborigines for the good reason that less than five per cent. of them are to be found in South Island; so that the native problem has never been of a serious character. The chief attraction for the Maoris lay in the greenstone for their weapons which the island provided; and though they had a few settlements on the coast, their number was too small to form any real obstacle to white occupation.

The character of the climate alone would give sufficient ground for their avoidance of the island, as they were a race of immigrants from the warmer regions to the north; also, as we shall see later, the structure of the country was not well suited to their habits of life. The case is very different when we come to deal with North Island; we shall find the Maori there a very important element in the history of its development. On our way from Nelson we shall pass through the narrow channel between Rangitoto Island and the mainland, where we shall probably meet “Pelorus Jack,” the huge pilot fish, or rather dolphin, who regularly escorts vessels through the strait. He is protected by Act of Parliament, and is so well known that he has become 62 a subject of Maori legends. A short steam from Pelorus Sound across Cook Strait brings us to North Island and within sight of Wellington.

LECTURE VII

NEW ZEALAND--NORTH ISLAND

We may remember noticing, in our first survey, that Cook Strait was much shallower than the surrounding seas, and that there was an evident connexion between the North and South Islands 1 of New Zealand. The strait at one point is narrower than the Strait of Dover, and the connexion between the two sides is still more clear when we look at the structure of the land. The parallel ranges of the Kaikoura Mountains, which we saw in the north-east corner of South Island, reappear on the other side of the strait. We can trace the continuation of the seaward Kaikouras in detached fragments of highland along the east coast of North Island; while inland there runs an unbroken range from the coast at Wellington right up to Cape Runaway at the eastern corner of the Bay of Plenty. So we have a backbone in North Island as well as in South Island, but on the eastern instead of the western side. The result is that the plains on the east are smaller than those in South Island. There is one of these plains behind Wellington and another south of Napier; the railway runs through them and connects up a whole string of small agricultural towns. North of Napier there is no railway, and the country is hilly or mountainous with few settlements. The whole arrangement is similar to that which we have seen in South Island, and is equally dependent on the position and structure of the main mountain backbone. Napier lies at the mouth of an estuary, while 2 Wellington, the only good port in the south of the island, is in a drowned river valley, running up between the seaward spurs of the hills and sheltered by them from the gusty winds of Cook Strait.

As we steam in from the sea we might well imagine that we were entering one of the fiords of South Island. The hills come down 3,4 to the water’s edge so that the city which they shelter is 5 somewhat crowded and cramped for space. The old settlement was on a terrace up the hill; but a modern port must be close to the water-level, so the wharves and warehouses are built largely on 6 land reclaimed from the foreshore. In fact, the foundations are piles driven into the mud, and the buildings in the pictures before us seem to be growing out of the water. Here is the passenger wharf with our steamer, and beyond it the town in the 7 early morning haze. From the tower of the Customs House we can obtain a good idea of the business part of the city. On one side of us are tall buildings, offices, and warehouses; on the other 8 are factories, sheds, and railway sidings, with the harbour and 9 shipping beyond.

It would be a rather ugly city except for the terraced hill in the background, where we find some of the finest buildings. If we look closely at some of these, we may be struck by a remarkable feature in their construction; many of them are made entirely of wood. The chief reason for this was the fear of the earthquakes to which the whole of this district is subject. Here is another curious result of the same thing. We see a fine cricket-ground, on which a match is in progress between Australian and New Zealand teams: the ground is in the Basin Reserve, which was 10 originally intended for a dock but was raised in level during the great earthquake of 1848. The Government offices are said to be the largest wooden buildings in the world; notice the curious 11 style of the architecture and contrast it with some of the many public buildings of stone which we saw in Australia. Even the Houses of Parliament are of wood. Parliament meets here, since Wellington is now the capital and seat of Government for the whole Dominion. The present meeting place is the old Government 12 House, since the former Parliamentary Buildings were burnt down in the summer of 1907. Only a fragment of them remains, chiefly the library which we see in this picture; the marble statue in 13 front is that of John Ballance, a former Premier of New Zealand.

Wellington, by its position, is a natural centre for politics and for trade, whether across the ocean or round the coasts; it is the chief port of the island and the starting point of a whole system of railways which has grown outward from it. As a trading centre, Auckland comes a good second, and Lyttelton third.

We have noticed already the railway to Napier, which reminded us 14 somewhat of that in the Canterbury district. The lines running to the north and north-west carry us into an entirely new type of country, and before following them up we must look carefully at the build of the island on the other side of the mountain backbone. Here our experience of South Island will help us little. Instead of a gentle uniform slope to the ocean, we find a confused and bewildering structure. The mountain ranges in the long northern neck and in the Coromandel Peninsula, with its continuing islands, run from north-west to south-east, almost at right angles to our main dividing range. In the broader part of the island these ranges disappear, and we have a broken plateau in the region round Lake Taupo with short ranges lying on it in irregular fashion. We may notice that rivers radiate from this centre in every direction except the east. Finally, in the south-west corner, we see an isolated and symmetrical mountain block. The forces at work here seem to have been very different from those which shaped the long ridges of South Island. The Taupo district will give us the key to the whole: it is volcanic and contains active cones, geysers, and hot springs in great number. There is another contrast: in the south and west of the island we have no fiords or inlets, but long, smooth coasts hollowed out into bights; whereas the north is made up of islands, inlets, and peninsulas. We shall see later that these differences in structure have more than a purely geographical interest, since they have had a most marked influence on the settlement and history of the island.

Let us now start on our journey by rail and observe the country as we pass rapidly through it. At first we travel through open lands with many prosperous-looking farms. Then, as we turn northward on the main trunk line, the scenery gradually changes; there are rugged hills, plateaus with steep broken edges, and rivers running at the bottom of narrow gorges. The whole face of the country looks disturbed and unfinished, and becomes wilder and more desolate as we approach the volcanic district in the centre. At Waiouru, we leave the train and mount a coach which jolts us sadly over the rough roads. From the station, looking northward, we can see in the distance the great cone of Ruapehu, with slopes of dark purple and a dazzling cap of snow upon the 15 summit. Beyond it are other cones, one of which, Ngauruhoe, we see here; and below us, as we drive along, is the Wangaehu, a 16 narrow stream flowing in a dark grey bed, its waters heavily charged with sulphur. Further on is the Waikiti, at the bottom of a deep chasm.

As we draw near to Lake Taupo we notice here and there puffs of steam rising from the scrub at the side of the road, and on the roadway we meet Maoris, tattered and dirty looking. Here we see two of them meeting and saluting one another by touching noses. 17 At last we drive on to the jetty at Tokaanu at the southern end of the lake. There are more Maoris here and on the steam launch which is to take us to the other end. Taupo lies right up on the central volcanic plateau, and we are about to visit part of the great geyser region a short distance from its northern end. It is the largest of the lakes of New Zealand, and is interesting not so much for its beauty, as it has little, but for its close connexion with Maori history. Here is a view of the lake looking 18 back towards Tokaanu and the volcanic range of mountains.

A short drive from the landing place at the northern end brings us to Wairakei, where we walk down a pleasant green valley to view the geysers. First we visit the Champagne Pool, a little 19 lake with steep red walls and deposits of white silica on the lower rocks. Here the water is always bubbling and spouting at a temperature above boiling point. The deposits of silica often form beautiful terraces: the most famous in the world were at Rotomahana, not far from Lake Rotorua which lies at the north end of our district. Here are two pictures of the Rotomahana 20 terraces; notice the people bathing in the hot pools. These great 21 terraces were destroyed by the eruption of Mount Tarawera in 1886, but there are many smaller formations of the same kind to be seen in the district. Here, for instance, is one gradually 22 being built up round the Twin Geysers.

Further down the valley we come to the great Wairakei Geyser which plays for three minutes and then is quiet for eleven. Here is a distant view from the opposite bank of the river; and here 23 we see the geyser at work with great vigour. Notice the curious projection in the foreground of the last picture; it is the trunk 24 of a tree, petrified by the deposit of silica, which is not white here but pale coffee-colour. There is a rainbow, too, in the vapour above, which is unfortunately beyond the capacity of our camera. Other smaller geysers are all round us with deposits of claret-colour, black and yellow, due to the different salts dissolved in the hot water. The ground shakes with the explosions of steam beneath us, and everywhere is heat and vapour; yet all the time the cold waters of the Wairakei River are flowing by within a few feet of us. Scattered over the valley are beautiful lakes and pools of different colours. Here is one of them, the Blue Lake, lying in a corner of an old crater; the perpendicular 25 walls which form the bank in front of us are white striped with orange.

Everywhere in this district volcanic agencies have changed the face of nature. In one part we find long stretches of grey pumice plains, with no vegetation but dusty brown fern. In another part, great deposits of sulphur have been laid down over 26 the earth. It is a country with a beauty of its own, but more attractive to the tourist than to the colonist and settler. It still remains a barrier separating the centres of white settlement and only recently crossed by the trunk line of railway.

It was in this wild country, to which the rail and coach now bring curious visitors from all parts of the world, that not many years ago the Maoris made their last stand against British power. East and west of the lake is the King country of which we hear much in history; except for the tourist it is still in the main left to the Maoris.

In Australia, as we have seen, the real obstacles to settlement were the climate and the character of the country; the aborigines were pushed back into the wilder districts or simply crushed out of existence by the civilisation of the white man. Not so the Maori: he has been a very important element in the life of New Zealand, whether as friend or enemy of the white invader, from the time of the earliest settlers--the whalers of Cook Strait, and the traders, boat-builders, and missionaries of the Bay of Islands which lies on the east coast of the long northern peninsula. The British have been settled in New Zealand barely three-quarters of a century, as the proclamation of annexation dates only from 1840; while the Maori has been in possession for five or six centuries at least and shows no disposition to be crowded out. He was, when first we met him, on a far higher level than the aborigines of Australia.

Who, then, are the Maoris? They are a brown race, a race of seamen who came in their long double canoes from the islands to the north and settled along the neck of North Island--the Fish of Maui as they called it--and at Otago and some few other points in South Island. They brought with them their island customs, especially the division into families and clans which were always fighting among themselves. In New Zealand they found all the materials for their usual mode of existence: timber for their houses and sea-going canoes, native flax for the weaving of clothes, stones for their weapons, as they had no knowledge of metals; and fish everywhere in the rivers, lakes, and seas. So here they built their houses, with little patches of garden for their few vegetables, while the surrounding country was the common possession of the clan, whence they added roots, berries, and wild birds to the larder. Everywhere, in the best positions for defence, were dotted about their fortified enclosures, or 27 pahs, in which they took refuge in the numerous clan feuds. Their religion consisted of a kind of fetichism, and their whole life was subject to the principle of _tapu_, or taboo as we commonly spell it, a principle common over all this part of the Pacific, and among savage races elsewhere. The Maoris were chivalrous fighters, eloquent orators, and careful preservers of the traditions of their past history. Such was the race which, in the nineteenth century, contested the settlement of the island with us.

Here is a portrait of a chief showing the method of tattooing 28 the face. Here again we see him with his _taiaha_, or staff of office: he looks civilised enough now; in fact, dressed as he 29 is, he might be mistaken for an Englishman, but doubtless he was very different in the old days. He is nearly ninety years old, and so must have seen the settlement and fighting almost from the very beginning. The building behind the group is a meeting house of the usual Maori shape, though the galvanised iron roof seems scarcely to agree with the elaborate ornamentation of the woodwork. Notice the curious scroll carving on the fetich pillars: it is a favourite design among the Maoris and appears also in the tattooing of their bodies.

We see the Maori here in European dress and we find him entering Parliament and the learned professions, or becoming a successful farmer and grazier in every way as civilised as ourselves. But he is not anxious to be a mere imitator of the white man, as he is intensely proud of his own race and past history. In the remoter districts he still clings to his ancient fashion of life. Here is a typical group, in native dress, and here is the simple 30 private house of a chief. Again we have an interesting portrait 31 of the daughter of a chief, holding her father’s heavy staff; her 32 curious dress is largely made up of the feathers of the wingless Kiwi, which we have already seen.

The Maori dances are among the most interesting of their social customs. We may perhaps see the _haka_, a survival of the 33 old war-dance, performed by half-clad warriors. It is now a ceremonial dance of welcome. Very different is the _poi_, the 34 pretty action-dance and song of women and girls, which we may see in the dancing-house of any native village. We notice that the costumes of the dancers are made up of native flax and feathers. The chief native sport is the canoe race, as the water is everything to the Maori. Here is one of the huge dug-out war 35 canoes, hewn from a single tree-trunk, and now becoming somewhat rare; and here again we see his canoe used to mark the grave of 36 a chief.

We are now in the district south of the Bay of Plenty and near Lake Rotorua, which we reach by a railway running up the valley of the Thames. Here is a typical scene. In the group before us a 37 woman is smoking a pipe; we may often see the same thing among the peasants of Ireland. Down below, a crowd of Maori children 38 are bathing in the stream, while the tourists watch them from the bridge. The place is called Whakarewarewa, a name rather difficult to pronounce. This is the northern end of the geyser district, which we have already visited. Here we see the tourists 39 again, with their cameras, waiting for the great Wairoa Geyser to start; and here is the geyser playing. Not far away are some 40 Maori women cooking by the steam heat provided by nature. 41

The centre of this region is Lake Rotorua, calm and cold, while all around on its banks are hot springs, geysers and boiling mud-holes. Here, where a few years ago was only bush, or primitive village, a fine modern town has sprung up for the 42 benefit of the tourist in search of beautiful scenery, or the invalid coming to the health-giving waters. Not far away is another lake, Rotomahana, in a huge basin formed by the eruption 43 which destroyed the famous terraces. Here we may enjoy the strange experience of boating on boiling water, with the geysers working all around us. Volcanic activity is everywhere in this wonderful country, and it is only natural that round it have gathered countless Maori legends.