AROUND THE WORLD.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 94, 21 April 1928, Page 4

AROUND THE WORLD.

GOSSIP OF THE PORT.

scows. When the writer was rounding North Head on an excursion steamer during the Easter holidays he sat beside two wellknown Auckland business men. "What is that vessel coming up the harbour?" asked one. "Only a scow," said the other. "Only a scow!" What an unjustifiable wealth of feeling was put into the words. They implied the contempt that is sensed by all those whose inferiority complex has been stimulated by seeing the big steamers moving about in the Waitemata. It was not the rig of the scow that might be calculated to inspire disdain. Was it her size? Or was it that the old scow was one of the few remaining units of a great fleet? A scow is but one better than a ketch, and a ketch is little superior to a yawl. To many of our landsmen a scow is of no significance when the importance of a ship (as that of an hotel, a motor car or a bank balance) is estimated by its bulk. A scow to-day is of no more importance than a soapbox on pram wheels, and her hands take rank with the urchins who menace life and limb on the side walks of Ponsonby.

Such is one of the manifestations of the progress of mankind. Always there is a striving after something bigger, faster, dearer. It was only a few yesterdays ago that the Union Steamship Company completed the most up-to-date motor liner afloat and crowed proudly and loudly. When she arrived at Auckland she received a royal welcome. To-day she is out of date. In a recent issue of the Auckland "Star" we are told that the Cunard line announce the building of a super-Aquitania to wrest from their transAtlantic rivals the record for size, speed, comfort and cost. In the "Star" of Saturday last appears the announcement that our Yankee cousins had let a contract to a Continental firm of shipbuilders to build three colossal liners, each to attain a speed of over thirty knots. To-morrow we shall hear that the Germans are building something even bigger, faster and more costly. And so we go on. Within a few months an a&ship will endeavour to reach India in the same time that it now takes a Cunarder to cross the Western Ocean. Soon, no doubt, New Zealand will get her share of this speedy transport. It is only sailormen who appreciate the fact that thirty years ago the mail liners trading toj the Dominion were as speedy as they are to-day.

The Finger of Fate. In such an atmosphere of speed and bustle slow things and small things cannot exist, and should they linger on they come to be regarded as freak survivals of a prehistoric age. Perhaps they are. The real spirit of the age is progression, and to achieve progress one must destroy. The civilisation which is necessary to the existance on this tiny little globe of so many hundreds of millions of men necessitates a speeding-up of communication Slowly, but surely, the world is shaping its course in "the right direction. The Great War was a bad jibe, but we are now keeping a better eye on the compass card, and in a century or two our descendants should make a good landfall. Scows, it is to be feared, like their big sisters the wool clippers and other craft of uneconomic nature, are doomed to disappear—and mare's the pity, from aesthetic and sentimental points of view. The writer has a soft corner in his heart for scows. Their captains and their crews are his good friends, for like "himself they are sailormen. To know them, to appreciate what they are up against in sailing their scows around the wild waters of our coast line is to look up to them as one looks up to the brassbound steamer captain. They are an approachable lot of men, somewhat rough until you know them, like most sailormen. From Auckland to all the ports in the Gulf, and sometimes right down the coast as far as Gisborne, they take their handy little craft. In and out, out and in, they may be seen any day when the wind is blowing fresh. Come fair, come foul weather, they are always on the job, it takes something more than an ordinary blow to make them run for shelter. Their ma«ts are always well varnished, their sails trim and in good order. Everything about them is ship-shape and Bristol fashion.

Thews days are not busy ones for the scow fleet. Practically all that is left to them is the shingle trade from the in the Gulf to Auckland, with perhaps an occasional voyage to a more distant port for a timber cargo. In the old days when the scow fleet of Auckland numbered nearly a hundred, some of them traded regularly between certain of the coastal ports and the Waitemata, carrying mails and passengers, but with the coming of the railways that trade was lost to them. Many of them were of the "tramp" species, going wherever a cargo offered, but they all went their ways with an assurance that can no longer be theirs in these days of petrol and spark plugs.

A Handy Little Craft. Some years ago the writer was at Russell in the Bay of Islands. The Auckland steamer was a day late in her itinerary, and an opportunity offered of returning to the city in a cargo scow. She was by no means pretty to look at, as she had just discharged a full load of store cattle for one of the big runs in the north. Taking advantage of the offer he was ushered into the cabin and introduced to her captain and his crew of two. A cosy little cubby it was, clean as a Dutch wife's kitchen, and as comfortable as one could wish tor.

The captain was a son of the Vikings, a hardy Norseman, who had served many j D r deep water sailing ships, xle had been settled in Auckland for over twenty years, and having raised a family ot young New Zealanders, considered himself a good Colonial. He was a prime seaman and the manner in which he took his scow away from the wharf in a head wind, without the use of a tug, gave one vpS enC Th - COuld handle his vowel. The wind was fresh from the WA,,t n S«. W D a game to beat nirfif f he .? ay -„ It t<K>k US UDtil midnight to weather Cape Brett, and the wind having freshened considerably when Tatla ° U f , the , dee P water, the topsails were furled and single reefs made in an r d foresail - She was a y m ® Craft ' like a witch, 8\ ve Points in tacking to many * Auckla nd yachts. During the night the wind backed to the southard, and every hour it was a case of " 'bout came as a great surprise to the writer, who had been used to the bier square-rigged clippers, how easy and handy do aITX Wa " t° haDdlc " one ma * could d( L a A wo /k required in tacking, and tfc cra i T as brought to the wind kSI V , w J lcel c o»ld be put in the if w * a c Y ou d sail Saily on until A t j ? ,e for tlle next tack. -r.W ght we , were down to the Hen and on one tack we just weathered the southerly end of the Hen Any reefs close in here, captain?" asked the writer. I m not certain where the are l but 1 , wh ere there's good deep water, and that's where we are going," was the reply. wWf ent w f ° Ur^ hoUrß J after leavin S Russell wharf we dropped our anchor in Mechanicsi Bay, the writer being satisfied that there were still good seamen of seas mdjammer sailing the high

5* a ver y short time from now, passenon ° ur excursion steamers will rush ? sl< £ e they see a scow coming arb °" r a " d inst ead of saying scow left." C ° W Wlll exclaim " The onl y

A provisional estimate by the Census Bureau on March 14 placed the population of the United States as at July 1, 1028, at 120,018,000, an increase of 14 per cent over the 105,710,620 actual count Jaruary 1, 1920.