NORTHERN PIONEERS

Evening Star, Issue 19044, 12 September 1925, Page 10

NORTHERN PIONEERS

ROMANCE OF A SPECIAL SETTLEMENT A JUBILEE TRIBUTE

[By. A.E.M.]

It is proverbial that one half the world does not know how the other half lives, and this applies to the past even more than to the present. The history of New Zealand cannot be understood/ properly without some knowledge of the difference between conditions in the various settlements. In some respects pioneering was the same in Canterbury as in the North Island, in Nelson as in the Bay of Plenty. In other respects it was very different, and the difference has colored history. It is not sufficiently realised how advantageous it was to southern pioneers to have so much open country so suitable for sheepfanning at their doors and no Native troubles, and how much the north was kept back by scrub and forest and Native wars. This sketch of the history of a special settlement in the Bay of Plenty should' he interesting to Canterbury people for the respects in which it differs from, as well as those in which it resembles, the experiences of their own pioneers. If you motor from Waihi eastwards along the main road, yon skirt the Waihi Plain—once a supposedly worthless wilderness of fern ajud tea-tree, now an expanse of dairy farms—and drop down into a gorge. A few miles on you breast a hill, and there bursts jiipon you what, on the right day, is one of the most beautiful views of the kind. When I saw it last it was under the perfect conditions of a calm,clear summer evening, and everything was consecrated by the fact that after years I ufas revisiting the hind of my fathers. Before ns was the northern end of Tauranga Harbor, in the Bay of Plenty, with Bowentown Heads and the Jong low line of Matakaua Island dividing it from the ocean. The tide was in; harbor and ocean were the deepest of bines; a clcar-cnt white line of breakers marked the bar; and in the far distance the sharp outline of Way or Island stood against the horizon. There were with me some who had never seen this prospect, but to whom 1 have talked of it, and the land on which we were entering, and it gave me a thrill to think how superb was the introduction. ‘‘ Oh— o —o —h!” said they all in a chorus of delight. This was Katikati, or rather an end of it, the settlement that next week is celebrating its jubilee. The hill we had climbed is the northern end _of what used to be called the “Block.” On the left is a great plantation of pine trees—everybody planted pines in the early days—which encloses a house that was named Athcnrco by the retired Army officer who built it, after the Athenree in Ireland. This name at the gateway is symbolical of much that makes this settlement interesting. It was Irish, and it was largely aristocratic. A delectable place is Katikati. lb lies on a narrow strip of flats and foothills between a range of blue bush-clad bills, and the long, deeply-indented, shallow, exasperatingly tidal Tauranga Harbor. That waterway is a series of “ drowned valleys,” and the Katikati settlers made their homes on the hills and valleys that geological changes had left above water. The road through the settlement runs over ridge after ridge, and across stream after stream, swamp after swamp. The streams lose themselves in shallow estuaries,_ but on a. bright day when the tide is in you do not think of the flats that are so annoying to boatmen. It is a beautiful distinct, with its mountain rampart on the west, sweeping round from, north to south, its green fields and fine enclosed homesteads, its sprinkling of English trees, its pohntukawa-fringcd points jutting out into the_ blue water, and eastward the great view of the Heads and Mayor Island and the Pacific. Its climate is_ one of the best in the province. If its harbor were deeper and more accessible, and the land richer, it would be a paradise, and, as it is, there are some who think it sufficiently near perfection for mortals who deserve little. It may he doubted, however, whether the first batches of Katikati settlers thought so. The Vescy Stewart pioneers who arrived by the Clarisnrookc Castle and the Lady Jocelyn in the ’seventies were dumped down in a wilderness. Their base was Tauranga, and so rough was the Katikati district (hat the Government official who in 1871 reported on the question of settlement wrote that not ten people m Tauranga had ever been six miles overland in that direction. A horse track preceded the road, and many rivers had to be forded. Travelling by whale boat and cutter was easier.

Timber for houses whs brought up from Tauranga by sea, and homes rose amid the fern and scrub of the wilderness. Soma of the settlers built beautiful homes. One place, with its galieried dining room, where crossed swords hung over the mantelpiece, and its big bay-windowed drawing room, rich in pictures and books and English periodicals—one window looked over the soa, and French doors opened on to a verandah covered with scented creepers —always appealed to the writer’s boyish imagination. Another, superbly situated on a promontory, with the sea within a stone’s throw, boasted a billiard room. You can still see the built-in seats, but they do not play billiards there. Nature was kind. Shelter trees and shrubs grew cmickly iu the warm climate, and before long there wero patches of'England in the new laud. The perfumes of those gardens in warm summer nights, mingled with the scents of fern and tea-tree, comes hack sweetly mid poignantly across the years. And hero and there, alas: if all the pathos of decay—an old homestead, which was once the home ol light and laughter and gaiety, falling into ruin, or an old orchard choked with fern ami blackberry.

If a stop should sound or a word be spoken, Would a ghost not rise at the strange guest’s hand ? So long have the grey bare walls lain guestless, Through branches and briars if a man make way, Ho shall find no life, but the sea winds, restless. Night and day.

It was a North of Ireland settlement, with a strong Orange tinge. There were county families, farmers, and farm laborers in the crowded emigrant ships. The Lady Jocelyn carried 378 passengers, including, says an historian of the enterprise, “ two generals, a major, two or three captains and lieutenants, a canon, a doctor, no end of pretty girls, and fine young men.” In the hold were tons of family plate, pictures, and books. All thought they were going to make their fortunes—but howP Probably few had a very clear idea. The reality proved to he hard. The Government report on Katikati had been bright. The land was described as rich, but experience showed that this was applicable only to tho river flats. !’he land on tho fern ridges was second class, and after being sown in grass it quickly reverted to scrub. Tlio new conditions of fanning were not well understood, and capita! was scarce. The greatest drawback, however, was the want of a market. The settlers soon lountl that if they produced potatoes or butter, oafs or other things, they could not sell them. Tauranga was puly a village, and Auckland was far

away. There was no export. Southern settlements could depend upon wheat and sheep: Katikati was nnsuited for either. The long depression of the ’eighties had to he laced. Dreams faded. Some of the settlers were glad to get employment on public works. ofliers worked hard on their holdings and managed to hang on until the Waihi mine created a town and provided a profitable market within a few hours’ reach. Looking back on these times, one marvels that this and other southern settlements survived. Katikati was better off than some. Its land was less poor, and many of the settlers had private means. The “gentry” had a little money, and witli it made the best of things. There was a good deal of gaiety. Cadets arrived, young fellows, some of whom had failed for their Army examinations, and had been sent out to learn farming. They did not learn much. Perhaps they were not very keen to dp so. There were picnics and dances and horses to ride and cricket matches, and life was very pleasant. Everybody knew everybody else. They were all one big family. The tics with Homo were strong. Mail day was an event. These were the days when a letter earned fid in postage, and thrifty relatives in the Old Country wrote not only on both sides of their paper, but across what was already written. And what a scramble there was for the newspaper mail —‘ Punch ’ and the ‘ Graphic,’ and the ‘ Boys’ Own ’ and the ‘ Girls’ Own.’ The men’s bedrooms used to be decorated with ‘ Graphic ’ drawings—this was long before the introduction of photographs—of battles in the Sudan and other “little wars.” A colored supplement was a treasure.

Such was Katikati, one of thoso special settlements that heighten the romance of New Zealand pioneering. In these settlements; with their savor and tang of national characteristics, of collective and individual enterprise, there is a wealth oj’ material for the novelist, the poet, and the dramatist. The hopes that proved to be dupes, the fears that turned out liars, the pathetic unfitness of many for the rough new life, the struggle of cultivated lives with the wilderness, the humors of a transplanted society, the wistfulness of mothers who “ called old England Homo,” the rise of a generation to whom New Zealand was native land—these and other phases of that fascinating life await an interpreter who will do them justice. in the meantime Katikati is flourishing. The days of struggling with a baffling soil and uncertain markets are over. Dairying and scientific farming have transformed the face of the landscape. Laud that thirty years ago was covered with fern and scrub, and considered worthless, is now green with grass that makes butter and cheese. The railway is in its territory, the railway that men used to talk about forty years ago. To those who remember those days something of the romance of the past has gone never bo recaptured. Mr Kipling tells ns, however, that romance brings tip the “nine-fifteen”; perhaps it also brings us the milk van that runs so regularly to the factory. At any rate, Katikati celebrates its jubilee amidst the smiles of prosperity. ‘ The wilderness has been made to blossom with the rose. Good fortune attend that delightful laud I