THE LAND OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXII, Issue 7383, 18 July 1885, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE LAND OF THE GOLDEN FLEECE.

BY GEORGE AUGUSTUS SAL A. lI.—FOUR HOURS IN NEW ZEALAND. I KEMEMBKK, many years since, enjoying the acquaintance of a gentleman whom we were never tired of bantering, for the reason that being asked—he was continually boasting of his travels in far-distant regions—whether he had ever been in Persia, he replied that such was indeed the case, but that he was unable to tell ua much that wae interesting concerning the dominions of the Shah, eeeing that ho had only remained in Persia during a period of ono day. I penitently acknowledge now how cruelly unjust wo were to our travelled acquaintance. It may bo that he spoke the simple truth in remarking that his stay in Persia did not exceed 24 hours. Behold mo ouce more on the Pacific Ocean, and having to record that I have been exactly four hours in Mew Zealand. It happens, however, that in one sense I may have an advantage over the gentleman whom we so unfeelingly ridiculed. He never asserted that he had repeated his visit to Persia. Now the present writer, on tho other hand, humbly hopes to bo able to retnrn to New Zealand beforo many weeks are over, and to sec a great deal more of tho Britain of the South than lie haw at Auckland in four hours ouo well-remembered Sunday afternoon.

But first I must tell yon of the manner of our leaving Honolulu tho Enchanting. I declare that in the whole course of my wanderings I never saw a more fascinating spot, or one which seemed, to offer a fairer prospeet of leading a peaceful, tranquil, happy existence. It ia tho kind of place whither Mr. Holraan Hunt or Mr. Buruo Jones should come if either great master of Knglish art wished to paint a picture dr. lon-jw. halnnc, undisturbed by art critics or''too partial friends,"—confound them! Were 1 a poet, and ambitious to write an epic, were I a dramatist yearning to indite a five-act tragedy on some subject hitherto quite untouched— nay Jane Shore, or Fair Rosamond, or Boadicea, Queen of tho Iceni —it i 9 to Honolulu that I would repair. It is true that ono of my esteemed custodians in tho waggonette—it was the clergyman, I think, told me that the luxuries of life were fearfully expensive at the Sandwich Islands, aud that wearing apparel and mixed pickles commanded famine prices. But what ot those trifling little drawbacks? Clothes are rather :iu encumbrauco than a convenience in this sultry clime ; and surely poetj and painters can exist without mixed pickles. For the rest, there is an excellent caravanserai for the accommodation of tourists, the Royal Hawaiian Hotel, spacious aud airy, cool, clean, and moderate in its charges, and conducted, I need scarcely eay, on tho American system, which, all thiDga considered, is certainly the be3t system of hotel-keeping in the whole world. If any further inducement were needed for travellers wishing to stay a few weeks in Hawaii, it might be found in the circumstance that the hotel contains a vast billiard-room and a gatden bhibhiug with tropical plants, and commanding a magnificent view of the Nuuanu Mountains : that it is close to a cabstand (shade of Captain Cook !} ; that at the Kilauta restaurant and cafe, halfway between Kapaa and Hanalet, refreshments are dispensed by Mr. Joseph S/jharch, and tho Hawaiian, English, French}, German, Portuguese, Japanese, and Chinese languages are spoken ; aud that, finally , , the Honolulu Iceworks Company have reduced the price of ice from 2§ to \\ cents a pound. Aloha !

But the best of friends muet part; and the inflexible Captain Gli.eet was not, I know full well, a mariner to mo trifled with, bo within a comfortable margin of the time fixed for the departure of the Australia I was driven down to the wharf, and my frionds, so newly found, SQ-goon to be lost, bade me a cordial farevygU. Very sad, indeed, are these partings, when the wanderer is in the late iutumn of life. You like the place, you like the people; but, in all human probability, you will not sea cither place or people again any more. I have always ventured to think that there was a touch of humbug in Byron'e exquisitely lyrical farewell to Maxos. Why should he have asserted that his heart SMik chill within him, and that he waved a hand as cold, when he thought that the shores of Naxos ho should never more behold ? He was young, he had plenty of money, hi had the eplrit of aiventurc. What was there to prevent his returning to the Itland of Naxos, if he chose to do so, over and over again ? But I shall never return to Honolulu. We had, on the other hand, a ffillnw-paasenger, an American gentleman, domiciled in Melbourne, and who was accustomed to make frequent trips from 'Frisco to Australia, and vice versa, This gentleman wae, to uso American parlance, "acquainted clown at Hawaii," and while my custodians bad been driving me out of my mind in the waggonette, hie friends had been making much of him in the traditional Hawaiian fashion. They had got up in his honour the ceremony known as the "Lais"—lam sure that I do not know whether I spell the word correctly ; at all events they had danced round him and sung songs in hia honour, and then they had decked him with floral trophies ; and a most picturesque, not to say amazing, appearance did the American gentleman present when he appeared on the wharf escorted by a posse of friends, members, I apprehend, of the " Lais" committee. They had entirely festooned hie manly frame with beauteous flowers. He had manacles, armlets, bangles, and a necklace of roses an! lilies and daflydowndillies, or their topical equivalents. Hia sash was of stefanotis, his crossbelt of orchids ; hia very belltopper hat had been garlanded with flowers. He looked like a glorified Jack-in-thc-Green on Mayday, long since lo«t sight of in smoky England, but resuscitated and revelling here in a floral apotheosis at Honolulu. He stood on the wharf, a thing of beauty, but (such is the mutability of mundane things) not to be a joy for ever ; for no sooner had he stepped on deck, where he stood beaming, and proclaiming in his emiling countenance his thorough enjoyment of the "Lais"—if that be the way to spell it—than his friends on shore began to pelt him with oranges ; and one of the golden frut hit him on the nose and made him angry, bo that he speedily retreated to his stateroom, and divested himself of his floral tomfooleries. Thus pass away the glories of the world ! 'Twaa tho American fiond children who picked up the oranges and ate them. Altogether I am inclined to fancy that the " Lais" ceremonial affords an opportunity for a good deal of practical joking, and that the custom is one which would be more honoured in the breach than in the observance,

Fairwell, fair Honolulu ! An earthly paradise, I repeat; almost perpetual sunshine, lovely starlight nights ; a plenitude of cocoanuts, yams, bananas, pineapplee, guavas— whatever you will in the way of fruit; a sea full of fish ; a kindly, cheerful, docile people ; a constitutional king and a free press; frequent communication with San Francisco and with Australia ; a multitude of churches ; Romaniat convents, Chinese joss-houses ; singing and dancing, and the innocent gambadoes of the "Lais." Anything else in this Polynesian Eden ? Yes ! There is a serpent—leprosy. The hideously mysterious malady gangrenee the people, deforms their limbs to goblin ugliness, covers them with blains and sores more appalling than " the botch of Egypt and ... emerodsthat cannot be healed." One of

the ielauds is set apart for lepers, and thither the sufferers from the ghastly disease are periodically conveyed to live and die among lepers like unto themselves. The physicians are fighting over the origin and cause of this scourge, and over the modes of treating it. Some assort, others deny, that it is contagious; others accuse tho Chinese of importing it. John Chinaman'a back seems to be considered broad enough to bear any burden, moral or physical. A seotion of the faoulty ascribe the prevalence of the malady among the lower claeses of the native population to the circumstance of their being mainly icthyophagi. Fishraw iish—is the staple of their diet. They only vary it by sippiDg aa abominable mesa made from some root pounded and steeped in wator. I did not venture to taste it; but it looks aud smolls like bookbinder's paste turned sour. So we were once more upon the aea for another three weeks' spell. We were in the tropics. Wo lost a day. We crossed the lino ; but Neptuno did not come on board, aud wo had no equatorial horseplay. The weather had become oppressively hot, and the five undaunted poker players in tho smoking-room, although they doeisted not from the pursuit of tho fascinating gamo in question, were faia to divest themselves of their coats and vests, and gamble in their shirt sleeves. 'Twas then that there was revealed unto you tho mystery of the American "hip pocket," an addendum to tho pantaloons which, I have reason to believe, ia not wholly unknown at the antipodes. I had hoard that it was at the hip that tho American habitually carried his revolver, but the five poker players, although all Californians, were fortunately not "shootists." Their hip pockets sorved a more innocent aud more convivial purpose. They merely contained bottlos of a flattened shapa, designed presumably, to hold Bourbon or Old Kye. Aud then 1 called to mind the story of tho transatlantic tailor who is measuring a customer for a pair of "pants." "Hip pockets?" enquires the sartor. "Yes. ,, "Oue or two?" "Two." "Pints or quarts." "Quarts." I will say nothing about whisky on board ship in the tropics, and will leave to others to decide the moot point whether, when you arc all but prostrated by the heat, it is beat to recruit exhausted nature with a cocktail or a lemon squash, or whether a golden moan might not be found by nibbling a atiok of chocolate, or auckiog a morsel of gum arabic. That which sorely troubled me was to decide what kind of dishoe I should waive. Oue of tho most ancients of English engraved caricatures extent—it is of tho period I have been told of Philip and Mary—represents an Englishman en. cuerpo, as the Spaniards say ; " all face, , ' as the Red Indians havo it—in a state of nature, in fine. Ho is surrounded by several bales of textile fabrics ; he has a large pair of shears in his rig'at hand, and his countenance is pervaded by an expression of meditative uncertainty. You see that, being an Englishman, he is a slave to the mutations of fashion, and docs not know what to wear. Thus, in degree, the simile for the tropics. Periodically, thanks to a watchful purser, there was a grand trunk and portmanteau parade on deck. The passengers' heavy luggage was hauled up from the hold and wo had ample facilities for a radical change of garments. But what to wear with tho temperature at I know not how many degrees above 90 under the awning of the hurricane deck, and at fever heat ! — so it seemed to you—in your stato room. 1 had left 'Frisco in a suit of pilot cloth ; a few days afterwards I went into thin bine eerge, and I waited on his Majesty the King of the Sandwich Islands in a black swallow-tailed coat, peppor and salt trousers, and a white waistcoat, which coscume might, I venture to think, pass muster as a Polynesian "frock dre«s." liut when we got into the tropics the ship's ollicers excited my envy by appearing clad from head to foot in snowy white. Now all my white gear was coming out to the other end of the world by the steamship Potosi, of the Orient line. I was constrained to content myself with blue flannel and a white wai3tcoat at dinner. 'But Phoebus continued to shoot rei-hot arrowa at us poor wights on board the Australia, and it was at least 15 degrees too warm for blue flanuel to be comfortable. How I longod for the long musliu bedgown of Honolulu ! The best contented of the male pasaengers, so far as clothing was concerned, seemed to be the five poker players in the smokingroom. They played away, early and late, in their shirts and pants uumurmuringly ; long since they had abandoned boots and 6uoeß for deck elippers, and one gentleman at least had discovered that it is possible to be good and happy without socks. On the whole I arrived at the conclusion that the most convenient dress to wear in the tropics k, failing the muslin bedgown of Honolulu, a Roman toga, sandals, a cabbage-tree hat, and nothing else. I find in my diary that on a certain Tuesday we were between Caps Maria Van Dieman and the Three Kings. It must have been tho first officer of the Australia who obligingly made the entry in question in my log, for I had neither map nor chart with mo, and I know no inoro about Cape Maria Van Dieman or the Three Kings than I did or do about the Oceanic languages ; but I know that on the previous day, just before sunset, wo were off the Samoan Islands. We did not touch at Apia, but we had a small mail to deliver and to take in, and fer mailing purposes a tiny steamer stood out, :md lowering a boat, brought us, in addition to the mail matter, a couple of passengers—and of them an eminent Englishman^of science, who had accompanied, I think, the Challenger on her cruise. It was in tho offing of Apia, in the Samoan Islands, that 1 made my first acquaintance with the noble savage, naked, and not ashamed —the savage whom Charles Dickens held in such utter horror. I have seen in my time Red Indians galore, in the United States, in Canada, and in Mexico; but they have been Indians who wore clothes, and who had acquired, at least, some of the vices of civilisation. I am old enough to remember Mr. George Collins' Ojibbevvay Indians, and the more recent Bosjesmen—revolting objects these last were—at the Egyptian Hall, London. But these were exhibition savages, and it is difficult to divest yourself of the impression that the savage at a show is more or less of a fraud. But the five and twenty brown-skinned men who rowed out to us from Apia in a whaleboat were real children of nature. As a rule, they were physically very fine fellows—tall, muscular, and well formed. Their intelligence, also, is said to be greatly superior to that of the other aborigines of Oceania, the Maoris alone excepted ; and somebody has given the SamoaDS tho soubriquet of " the Greeks of the Pacific." As the whaleboat neared the Anatralia we could see the crew of the whaleboat gesticulating wildly and brandishing with seemingly ferocious excitement cluba and tomahawks, spears and javelins; while they waved aloft with a seemingly defiant intent what appeared to be standards emblazoned with bellicose emblems. All this was startling enough to the inexperienced eye and ear; and the novice in aboriginal manners at Apia might have been rendered additionally nervous by the fact that the natives, as they waved their hands or flourished their lethal weapons, uttered the most discordant of yells. Were they really hostilo to us ? Were they persistent in their adherence to their primitive cannibalism? Was the end of all one's wanderings to be to make a meal for the anthropophagi, and was barbeoued special correspondent to be one of the entrees that

night at a Samoan supper ? It was, however, reassuring to remark that the officers of the Australia did not look in the slightest degree discomposed under the circumstances. The visages of the purser and chief steward bore even a positively jubilant aspect, and the Chinese crew retained all their equanimity, leaning over the bulwarks and watohing the proceedings with that peculiar simper which may have been characteristic of the Celestials many centuries before Cadmus flourished or the Rhapsodists sang the lays which were afterwards to be incorporated in the Hind. In reality, there was nothing whatever to be frightened about. The brandishing of clubs and tomahawks, these frantic yells, these wide-waving bannere, were only so much of the Samoan islanders' fun. Fun, be it understood, with an eye to business. They had brought off only so many rude "curios"of their own manufacture—weapons of war grotesquely carved ; rugs and mats aud robes, not woveu, but made of strips of beaten bark sewn together, stained in bright but by no means inharmonious hues, and decorated with patterns some of which bore a weirdly archaic resomblanco to antique Greek designs. These "curios" they hoped to sell for dollars and oents to the white men, but I am afraid that in the end the balance of trade was scarcely in favour of these simple Samoan islanders. They were not allowed to coino on board. Those who wished to trade with them repaired to the gangway on the main deck, and hauled in from the whaloboat as many articles of Oceanic vtrtu as they could clutch out of the Samoan bands, subsequently flinging to the owner 3 of the articles which the white men coveted such small moneys as they (the whites) thought that the naked brown barbarians were entitled to, or at least should be grateful for. The bargaining seemed to bo altogether a one-sided oue, and to bo invariably decided in favour of tho bargainer with the largest amount of muscle. You wei-e reminded of the commercial transactions between the Indiane and the Dutch, recorded in " Knickerbocker's History of New York," and of the acumen of that Mynheer who always bought skins by weight, and, putting his foot into the scale that was empty, laid it down aa au axiom that a Dutchman's foot weighed ten pounds. But with sunset the "trading" came to an end. The whaleboat steered off with her more or less contented crew of barbarians, aud I had seen the last of the "Greeks of the Pacitic." Some of their number were really very handsome, shapely men. In my sheer ignorauce I at first imagined that I discerned a few red heads among them, but closer inspection showed that the ostensibly "carrotty" aborigines had smeared their coal-black locks with some earthy substance resombliug red ochre. They were abundantly tattooed. Perhaps the noted " tattoceu Greek nobleman," of whom we used to hear so much, wae only a Greek of the Pacific, and haiied from Samoa.

Five days and nights more at sea, and then, on a memorable Sunday, at half-past two iu the afternoon, we made land again. Land with a vengeance. The twenby-tirat day out since we left 'Frisco, and now we were in the harbour of Auckland, New Zealand. In Australasia at last, and onlj some 1300 milee from Sydney—the long-yearned-for. Speaking strictly by the card, Auckland, the largest city on the North Island of New Zealand, is situated on the southern shore of the Waitemata harbour, an inlet of Thames Gulf. There is sufficient depth of water in the port to float the largest steamehipß afloat. Thue the Australia, after firing a gun in proud proclamation of her arrival, eteamed right up to the wharf. Auckland baa boen called by some enthusiastic traveller " the Corinth of the South." I will not guarantee the entire accuraoy of the comparison, but I hasten to state that the shores of the harbour looked exceedingly picturesque, and that the green hillsides, exuberant with vegetation, and dotted with handsome edifices (public and private), offered a most refreshiug sipht to eyes which the glare of the tropical eun and the continuous wash of salt spray during a three weeks' journey had mado somewhat sore.

As a rule 1 never bet ; but if you be of the male sex it requires an almost superhuman amount of virtue, or at least of strength of will—and volition often passes curreut for virtue—to abstain from at least a little mild gambling on a long sea journey. 'Tie true that I abstained from joining in the wild revelries of the live poker-playera in the smoking-room, and I have long since forgotten how to play whist, else ono might have had a quiet rubber now and again with the doctor and the purser and a non-poker-playing but still card-loving fellow-passenger. There was, however, not much harm, I hope, in taking a chance in the daily lottery or " ocean sweep," tho first prize in which is taken by the drawer of the number which corresponds with, or approaches nearest to, the number of mile run by tho ship during the previous 'J4 hours. Not much more criminal eithor, perhaps, is the colebrated Calcutta pool, in which all the numbers after having been drawn are put up to auction, tho speculators therein rieing in their bids in proportion to the chances which they think the ticket ofl'ered has of cor responding with the numbor of miles run. It may be accepted as a slight condonation of my offence against morality that I lost a great many more dollars than I won at Calcutta pool; but it chanced that the evening before we came into Auckland I made a wager—it wan only of a new hat—with an American friend that I would not find any letters, nor in particular any friends, awaiting me in New Zealand. In Sydney and Melbourne I knew that I was expected and waited for ; but in the land of the Maoris, whom should I know and to whom should I be known ? I was destined to lose my wager and to be agreeably disappointed, for I found both friends and letters from friends at Auckland. The first was a missive from my old friend Mias Gcnevieve Ward, the celebrated tragic actress, whom I mieeed seeing by only a few hours. On concluding a triumphantly successful tour through New Zsaland, she had gone on a brief pleasure excursion, like Dr. Syntax, in search of the picturesque, prior to starting for Molbourne en route for Adelaide, for another dramatic campaign. Miss Genevieve Ward and I have wandered in curiously similar tracks all over the world for ever so many years. 1 had the honour to make her acquaintance at St. Petersburg when I first viaited Russia in 1856 ; in 1863 I found htr at Havana, in tho island of Cuba; in 1564 I lighted upon her in New York, and in 1873 in London ; and now in 1885 I have just missed her at Auckland. I have found her since at Melbourne, at Brisbane, and at Sydney. Where next? At Batavia, at Singapore, or at Hongkong ? None of these rencontres are (D.V.) so very unlikely. The second communication which I found awaiting mo was from another old friend, Mr. James Ashbury, of yachtirig renown, and sometime Conservative M.P. for Brighton. He had been buying some large eetates in New Zealand, but, being forced to depart before the arrival of the Australia, had left me a whole budget of letters of introduction to influential personages at the antipodes. Aβ for my friends in the fleeh, not one of whom I had ever seen in my life before, they sprang up as it were from the earth or from the craters of one of the extinct volcanoee, of which there would seem to be an indefinite number round about Auckland. I was immediately taken into hospitable custody, and the word was immediately passed for " more curricles"—or at least for more buggies or barouches or waggonettes

or wheeled vehicles of some kind by means of which tho usual process of "driving you out of your mind" was to be accomplished. I found th.it I had friends in the person of His Worship the Mayor of Auckland and of the Editors of the Nkw Zealand Hkbald and Free Lance. A gentleman clad all in white, and with a cabbage-tree hat, loved me like a brother. I found to my amazement that I had a private room awaiting my occupation at a very comfortable hostelry called Cairns' Star Hotel, and there I found a genial landlady who told mo that Genevieve Ward had gone on to the hot lakes, and would thence proceed to Gisborne. Gisborne ! The name rang curiously on my

I think that I must have been reading something about Gisborne lately. Yes; it was on the Bth of October, 1769, that Captain Cook lauded at "Poverty Bay," on the east coast of the North Island, near what is uow the township of Gisborno, nnd at some distance north-east of Napier, the capital of the provincial district of Hawke's Bay. On the 11th the dauntlees circumnavigator weighed anchor aud stood out from what he termed "an unfortunate and inhospitable place," on which he bestowed the name of Poverty Bay, as it did not supply a single article they wanted, except firewood. Gisborne is now a post town with a money, order, savingw bank, and telegraph office. It is the centre of a very fine agricultural and pastoral district, with a large number of hotels, banks, aud insurance oflices, aud two halls for theatrical performances. Churches aud schools abound at Giaborne. There ar<> three newspapers. Poverty Biy, indeed Why, two companies have been formed for the purpose of working the petroleum welln in the neighbourhood. The good Homer sometimes nods, it has been said, and it musl. certainly have been in a very unprophetical reverie that the illustrious James Cook nicknamed that which was to be afterwards Gisborne, "Poverty Bay," and stigmatised ib as an "unfortunate aud inhospitable place." There were certainly no sigus of poverty abont Auckland, at least during the four hours that I spent in New Zealand. I saw —ay well as my hospitable custodians would let me see anything—a handeome, well-laid-out, cleanly, aud prosperous-looking town. It being Sunday, all tho shops were of course rigorously closed. The strictest observance of the Sabbath is the righteous rule throughout the length and breadth of Australasia, and the slightest violation of the Sunday-closiug laws is inflexibly punished by the magistracy, to the cuhancement, I need scarcely eay, of the national purity and morality. Still I was enabledtonota the very striking and imposing architecture of the banks with which Auckland abounds. Banks ! I have seen them by the score, by the hundred, since I have been in this wonderful country. The handsomest edifices in any Australian cities are always the banks. In the tiniest township, composed of a few wooden shanties, and where tho principal store is only a box of corrugated iron, there is sure to be a comely bank or two. In the larger towns the banks absorb the sites which in the northern hemisphere would be given up to hotels or theatres. The bauk is dimply a prodigious power at the antipodes. It seems to be in everything, around everything, and behind everything. The Government of Russia has been defined "as despotism tempered by assassination," while the constitution of some South American republics has been qualified as "revolutions tempered by earthquakes." Of Australian institutions it may to a certain extent be eaid that they represent perfect freedom controlled only by the btnks.