LEE-OH!

Evening Star, Issue 11451, 19 January 1901, Page 3

LEE-OH!

Stewart Island! Kay, Rakiura—and Rakiura let it be ! What perfect memories enfold that name—memories of a land of wondrous beauty, whose countless golden beaches are strewn with fragments of granite and quartz and gleaming mica ; whose shells and stones and the very veronica that creeps down to touch the water’s edge take on soft tones of heliotrope, so oft and lovingly arc they kissed by their great Father Sun 1 And then the bosky dells where Katurc clothes all with a lavish hand; where she is kind even to the fa'len stump, and drapes it afresh with soft mosses and tufts of dainty crepe fern, with tiny red berries peeping out between to see that no ruthless, careless foot should mar her beauty; where uplands are wooded with- trees of green of every conceivable shade, and scarlet rata triumphs forth from its dark green foliage and outlines itself boldly and in glorious contrast against the deep blue sky. And on these same uplands and grander hills is a perfect soil just waiting for Enterprise to come along and cultivate it ; and the day will tome when it will be the browsing-ground of thousands of sheen and cattle. It is a veritable “El Dorado.” In the bowels of its earth lie silver and gold and every precious mineral, and they cry to the toilers in the city “ How long, ye foolish ones, ere ye turn to me?” But there are other memorio- -memories of days of radiant sunrise and gorgeous sunsets; of days when one walked and talked with Valor’s sons and Beauty’s daughters, and formed perfect friendships, and being privileged to have intercourse with the sons of the soil— Maori.-:—the worthy descendants of kings, learned every day secrets new concerninrr 2arth. sky, and sea.

Bui of all happy days surely none could equal the 10th of January. for was not that the day when we visited the- Maori sehonlhnuse at the Neck ! Wc were a hnnnv party, and gay when we left Half-moon Bay in the morning, for were wc not in To Hina. of Bluff regatta fame, and had we not for shipper our own gallant "Tom” Kaiporn. And furthermore, and Best of all, being amateur yachtsmen, wore wc not in entire ignorance, as to what weather awaited us beyond the bar? Wc tacked in a leisurely fashion through the hay. and beguiled the time with song and talk and gay layghter, till wc cleared Harold Point, and then something about the wind struck us as peculiar. AVe had not experienced this wind an previous occasions. Westerly winds we knew and respected; easterly winds we loved ; hut this was out of our ken. We did not wish to ircat this strange wind harshly- or to cut it nut of our list, so wc inquired of our skipper its name. S.S.W. he called it. Somehow, we became verv silent on a- sudden. We argued as to what's in a, name all over again. Wc sat mi at first to do our thinking, hut in a short space of time, we thought it would simplify matters if wc assumed a recumbent attitude while we still pondered ; besides, we could thoroughly satisfy ourselves as to whether the planks of that deck were composed of pine nr kauri! But the inevitable cannot Ke hacked for ever, and it teas not long before we found it necessary to lean over the side and talk loudly and even hysterically to the wondering fish that darted round us. Things were at this critical stage when we suddenly glided once more into calm water, and realised that it is a wide sea that leads to no port. All hands set to work, and it was not long before lunch was ready ; and so perfect was that al heseo meal we did not envy the. Prince, of Wales. And what more could even the epicure desire'.' Blue cod and trumpeter brought in gasping from the sea and boiled in witter from mother ocean ; potatoes freshly dug from the earth, and cooked soft and mealy ; for plate;-, cool round mutton-bird leaves ; lor sauce, hunger; for drinks, milk warm front the cow and excellent spirits and billy-tea; and for a general finger-bowl, the ocean. Why, not one among us envied any king, living or dead ! Lunch well over, wc trooped oil' in a body to the Maori sehou.Uutt.je. about; a mile and a-half distant. Wc reached ili-.re just about 3 p.ut.—the usual hour for closing. Wc waited outside and listened while the children sang a closing hymn, and then we knocked at the door, and the schoolmaster opened it and gave us a gracious invitation to enter. Uh, that schoolmaster 1 Who shall describe him, and the extent of lies loving sway over his pupils'.' Not we ; and Dickens is no longer with us in the flesh. But as a slight index of his beautiful humility let us relate that, lull of love as his heart is for Maoriland and inimitable Alaon longue, we could not induce him to complain with his lips of the asinine clause in the Native Schools, Code which states, inter alia, that "Thu aim of the teacher, however, should be to dispense with the use of Maori in school as soon us possible ” 1 To the credit of the present Government be it said that this law came into force before their' day. Wc must give his due even unto—Cicsar. We expressed a strong wish to hear the children sing. There were fifteen present that day, though there are twenty-five on the roll; but the Maori youth and maiden is coy, and a goodly amount of coaxing was needed to persuade them to start to sing ‘ Stewart Island,' a quaint little song written and composed by their muster. Of course, it had to be sung in English 1 After much shuffling of bare brown feet on the wooden floor, and subdued gigglings and play of big brown eyes from beneath fringed eyelashes, and hardly to be resisted inclinations to turn right round and gaze out of the windows, they got fairly under way, and lost their coyness, -which in the Mauri never descends into self-consciousness, and soon lost themselves in their song, which rose and fell in tender rhythm. Then it was the visitors’ turn, and we sang ‘ [soldiers of the Queen ’ in our heartiest style, and repeated the chorus, which the youngsters soon picked up and sang with gusto. Then a lady among the visitors promised to sing a. solo if one of the children would sing our first, but this brought on a violent relapse of the coyness, but. finally three girls plucked up courage and sang us a sweet little native ditty. It was the turn now for the lady from town to keep her promise, and surely ‘ Fiddle and I ’ was never .sung to a more appreciative audience, and sung it was to no other accompaniment save that of nodding heads and shining eyes and happy hearts, for no people on earth love music more than our own Maoris. But compliments must be returned, and five handsome lads stepped forth and gave us a haka. Four distinct movements there were in that haka, which started off in fairly mild fashion with rolling ©yes and outstretched tongue and quit© a hearty amount of spitting; but that wait a merely preliminary canter, and by the time the fourth movement was finished we should, properly speaking, have been crawling under forms and behind blackboards for safety; but two things sustained ns: First of all, the never-to-be-forgotten fact that we were all true-born Britons, and therefore fearless; and secondly, the fact that the brown eyeshot that seemingly infuriated quintet sought our blue ones all through with a Iriendlv jileam. But the time had now come

for a combined effort, and quite naturally one and all rose and sang 'God save the Queen,’ and we did not grudge our Queen our prayers. We did not lidget through one verso, and look wildly for cloaks and umbrellas at the same time. No, we sang it through to the end; and brown eyes smiled into blue; and oh! it was a glorious foreshadowing, an unmislakeable sign, that the day is very close at hand when Britain will have fulfilled her Imperial destiny, and we will be one great and happy people, living in peace and unity under' one Hag, and owning one God—even the Lord ! But time was going on, and the open air outside v oocd us. At c all bowed our heads while the children repeated (be Lord's Braver. So softly and plaintively it started Eto matou Matua i te rangi. Kia lapu tou Ingoa —till it swelled in a crescendo, " Ake akc, akc, amine,” to the Great White Throne ; and then a little hush fell on the assembled company, and in it was that touch of reverence due from His loving subjects to the King of Kings. then \io trooped out into the open, and that never-to-be-forgotten game of rounders was played Visitors v. Scholars. It was a forlorn cause from the verv beginning. H hat show had poor townsfolk against those hare-legged youngsters? They fairly skimmed past us, and scout as we would they bounded up in the air in kangaroo fashion and evaded us. It was not long before we laid down our arms and cried ” Pax !” Then three cheers were given for the visitors and three cheers for the schoolmaster and his flock, and we hied ns once more to Te Huia ; and, as of old, fortune favored the brave and the fair, and we sped quickly home before a. fair wind, and all too soon we were in the haven where we fain would be, and night dropped a soft grey mantle on Rakiura. God bless Rukiura 1 W a in x k.