STRAY SKETCHES.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXI, Issue 9491, 21 April 1894, Page 1 (Supplement)

STRAY SKETCHES.

NORTHWARD HO ! [by "con."]

It need nob be our inquiry to discover the reasons thab induced me to take a trip North. Perhaps a search after new " copy," and a natural desire to see for myself that somewhat mythical country, which we, are wont to hear of as the "roadless," the neglected," or the "poverty-stricken" North, and about) which the average Aucklander (unless matters of business require his attention in that direction) knows as little as he does of the North Pole, may have had something to do with my undertaking the journey. Whatever the reasons, however, it matters not; suffice ib for you, gentle reader, to see in imagination myself and my companion well mounted, and starting for our long ride through the Northern peninsula ; and if you are bold enough to follow me further, and learn in the ensuing lines the sights that I saw, and the impressions that I obtained during that trip, let me trust that sufficient attraction may havo been imparted to them to render you not altogether dissatisfied with the perusal, and to awaken in you some interest in the country stretching northward from our " City of the Waitemata." There is a well-known saying, "Give a dog a bad name and hang him," which, being translated, may be said to mean in effect that public opinion condemns notwithstanding ib may have no foundation in fact. This truism is, to a certain extent, applicable to the North, for it has undoubtedly obtained a bad name, and ib will take much argument to convince the people at large that their ideas of the country are incorrect. That it is not so bad as painted is evident to anyone who has travelled it, tor though perhaps blessed with less good soil than other parts of the colony, special circumstances combine to make up for any loss in this respect, and sooner or later Aucklanders will wake up—in fact signs are nob wanting that the waking-up process has already begun—to discover that they have a really valuable property at their doors in this Northern country, about which they have in the past known little and cared less.

Those who have had occasion to travel for any distance through the land of which I write will doubtless hare a vivid recollection of the fact tnab on the main northern road between Warkworth and Whangaroi, a distance of about 80 miles, there is nob a single public house. The reasons of this are probably not difficult to find, and I will not say that on the whole tho districts are not the bettor for this state of prohibition ; but the thirsty wayfarer has often occasion to find much fault with this 'arrangement, and possibly it might bo this absence of "pubs" that has to do with the bad odour in which the North is held by some persons who have occasion to traverse these regions, and on whoso opinions the reputation of the districts is often based.

Throughout this dry and dusty journey the board and "refreshment" for man and beast is provided for by accommodation houses, and though of course these vary much according to the characteristics of the "keeper," yet they are all clean and respectable. Some are more comfortable than others, and it is well for anyone starting on a journey to find out from (those who have had long experience on the route, tho best places to stop ab. Comparing them, accommodation . houses may be divided into two classes, the " farm" and the "store." A good farm accommodation house is a treat to stay at, and especially if through any remote channel you can claim tho merest acquaintanceship with your "host." You are treated by him and his family with the greatest homeliness and hospitality, shown the cows, have to critically examine the poultry, sample the cider or the hop beer, and praise the cheeses, besides listening, if you are so inclined, to the history of the early days, the growth of the district, and the state of its individual inhabitants. The meals are good and wholesome, consisting mostly of the produce of the farm and orchard, and the bedrooms are clean and well kept. A store accommodation house, that is, one kept by a storekeeper, though clean, is not so well and artistically kept. The proprietor, in a continual hunt after filthy lucro, lost amid packages of tea, bags of flour, and cases of sugar, with the anxieties of bad debts and doubtful credits hanging over him, is nob the free, open-hearted person that the farmer is. The nature of his employment sours him more, he does not look after his household as well, and the meals are formsd for the most part of articles which are vended in the store, and are scarcely so wholesome as those provided by our farmer friend. We had experience on two consecutive nights of these two species of accommodation houses, and the difference was therefore the more marked. It is, however, but common fairness to say that the charge ab the " store" was 30 per cent, less than that at the other, so that matters were to some extent equalised thereby ; it is also fair to state that, in ascending the rough staircase to my bedroom in the " store" house, I unfortunately struck my head with some force against the landing above, and this accident may have given me a perhaps unwarranted prejudice against this class of house. But it will generally be admitted that the traveller from town for change and pleasure is always better pleased to get into a wellkept farm house than a place which is little better than a second-class Auckland tradesman's shop. But though there is so great a stretch of country where the hotel, so well known to metropolitans, is a forbidden thing, do not, gentle and law-abiding reader, think that ib is impossible for the thirsty one to slake his thirst with anything stronger than Adam's ale, or the lacteal fluid, or the harmless ginger pop. I may say ab once in order to prevent any wrong impression from arising against me in the minds of our temperance friends that it is nob from personal experience that I speak, but that rumours at times reached my ears of a certain beverage which delighted in the local and suggestive name of "barbed wire," and the mention of which, accompanied by a knowing wink and a covert smile, told its tale without further explanation to those whose ears and eyes were open to intelligently hear and see. Like the breeze no one knew whence it cometh, bub whither ib wenb was more patent, and at many a racecourse or a sports meeting the unsteady step and the rolling gait of some of the spectators, showed plainly that they must have been badly caught by the " barbed wire." A story was told us of a man, who, becoming inconsistently excited ab a race meeting, was by the constable present, arrested after considerable trouble for disorderly conductnot for being drunk and disorderly please note. This done the constable was in rather a quandary, for he could not well leave the meeting without a limb of the law being present to look after it, and on the other hand ib would be undignified and embarrasin", to say the least, for him to perambulate the course for the rest of the day with his prisoner in tow. However, with commendable presence of mind and common sense, he rose to the occasion, and, having handcuffed his man, fastened him by a strong rope to a stout post, whereoh irony of fate -or of the policeman —the barbed wires stretched on either side, so a3 to render any struggles by the prisoner to escape painful at least, and where, like Paul, he found ib hard to kick against the pricks. Evidently the lesson proved effective,for the tethered one at length expressed penitence, and promised nob to do it again, whereupon the policeman, after warning him of the folly of over-excitemenb, loosed him and let him go. In journeying as I did one thing could nob ...il to impress me. The North is, par txcslloncif the place of small things a

thousand-acre holding of good land would be considered quite an extensive estate; There are several large properties, indeed, bub these are merely exceptions, and even they do nob, either in size or in the quality of the soil, approach to anything like the large runs of Hawke's Bay or Canterbury. But though the settler's land may be smaller in area, he is nob restricted to one means of subsistence, as is often the case in more Southerly districts. " I went to Taran&ki lasb year," said a well-known man of the North to me, "and after I had seen the of the soil I returned discontented with my lot, and resolved to sell out and settle in the land of butter factories. Bub when I had slept over ib, my resolution departed, as I considered that there they have really but the one industry, while here we potter in many things, which, though individually returning us libble, together provide us a sustenance, and are safer ' than having our eggs' all in one basket."

, In many cases the settlers, especially the pioneers, have been, and are still, gumdiggers as well as farmers. They are contractors for roads and fencing, navvies for the nonce, bushfallers for their wealthier neighbours ; and many a Northern farmer now, with his flocks and herds around him, will tell you thab ib was work like this that first started him, and enabled him to feed and clothe himself and his family until he could get his rough homestead under control. Strong and brave-hearted men they must have been, these pioneers, to face and fight the native bush in all its primitive strength and density, and literally hew their homes out of the heart of the forest. And when now we see the verdant clearings, free of tree stump and loose log, we can scarcely believe that not so many years ago these were covered with the same tangled growth of vegetation that still envelope the hills around them.

There is without doubt much bad land in the north, but there are patches, and very large ones at that, of land, the quality of which is undoubtedly good for agricultural and pastoral purposes. There are several extensive volcanic belts at Whangarei and in the Bay of Islands, and Hokianga counties, and: north of that still, where small Mount Edens rise at frequent intervals, and from the summits of which have in times long past issued the excrescences, which have now in the course of ages become the fruitful soil that grows the crops of oats, and maize, and fruit, which bound the road on either side as we pass along. Many a fertile river flab and valley, many a bold limestone outcrop of large area we pass, some portions well cultivated and thriving, testifying alike to the industry of the settler and the responding fruitfulnees of the soil, while in some of the bush-covered Maori blocks, as yet untouched by the white man, the luxurious rankness of the native grasses bear strong evidence of the productiveness of the earth that grows them. There is much suitable land in the North yet unoccupied, but which an increasing demand and a limited supply in other portions of the colony are bound sooner or later to bring into prominence, and the occupation of it by settlers will readily follow. Already attention is, I know, being directed by several hardheaded Auckland farmers to Northern blocks of land, and most of the Crown areas, which have lately been thrown open here, have, if of anything like good quality, been eagerly taken up by a class of settlers drawn from different parts of the colony, practical men, who evidently intend to make their selections their homes. The next few years will certainly see a vast change in the North, and I venture to say that, given good local management, and right and just consideration by the Government, with a fair share of the expenditure of the taxpayers' money, the district, which we now hold so cheaply, will, being aided thereto by its varieties of climates and the consequent diversity of its vegetable 'products, and by a consistent development of its mineral and other resources, become a very important part of the colony. Although, as 1 have mentioned above, the land is patchy, yet the good areas are generally of extensive dimensions. Occasionally, however, the traveller comes upon some very small patches of fertile land, and the appearance of these, like cases in a desert, are sufficiently singular to deserve notice. Between Mangapai and Whangarei, the road, after traversing miles of poor and barren country, winds round a hill of limestone formation comprising about five hundred acres, which grows splendid grass and carries a large number of sheep and cattle. The owner of it—for it belongs to one man —must be a happy being, for he has no neighbours to bother him, no legal boundary fences to erect, while he can, with no one to say him nay, use the scrubby land which stretches for leagues around him as a rough run for his surplus stock. Further north, some miles past Hikurangi, the main road again winds round another hill, this time of volcanic formation, and it does not need much of an expert's eye to see that this land is wonderfully rich and fertile. At intervals streams of clear water flows across the road, running over a bed of volcanic rocks where the black earth has been scoured away by the force of the brook. The fern is of large size, tall and rank, and the grass growing on the roadside is so rich and succulent that our horses are fain to stop, and for a few brief moments they enjoy themselves with such green food as they have not tasted since they left their homes In Auckland. In half-an-hour more we are crossing the white clay roads of a large gumtield that could not grow a decent blade of grass if it tried !

Again, on the Taheke road in the Hokianga County, after passing the rich plateau beyond Kaikohe, we come suddenly upon a strip of clay land, perhaps three miles in width, which runs up like a long thin wedge, and divides two large areas of good and fertile land. These are a few instances which show the peculiarities of some northern land and the strange contrasts in the quality of the soil that nature has thought fib to expose so rudely and vividly. Bub do nob think that, though there are extensive tracts which the farmer would designate bad land, theso are wholly useless. In many of these clay sterile expanses are found large deposits of kauri gum, that northern staple, peculiar to our province, the quest after which forms an occupation unique in the world, and attracting to itself persons of all nations and classes, from the nobleman down on his luck to the labourer oub of employment. On these gumfields, dreary and forlorn as thoy appear to one whose eyes aro wont to rest upon green paddocks and white-fleeced flocks, dwell a number of people, owning no man their master; and Auckland has in the past been much indebted to these fields for baking her surplus labour, and providing a sustenance for those who, but for this would in all probability have been loafing about the streets of the city begging for bread, or clamouring for that work which the empty coffers of the State could nob have supplied them with. A queer lot of men are these dwellerson the fields, with tacitcustoms peculiar to themselves, and they and their laws and their grievances and theirquarrels would form an interesting study to one who could devote some time to the matter. There is something romantic, too, in the thought that perhaps the man dressed in a soiled coloured shirt and a pair of "ducks" that once were white, who bobs up unexpectedly from the stunted fern on the side of the road, as you pass along with your eyes halfclosed from very weariness at the monotonous succession of barren and seemingly unending undulations, may perchance be a scion of a noble English house, whom circumstances have reduced to the carrying of a kauri gum sack and the delving for the resin with spear and spade. At the present time, owing to the recent unfortunate fall in the gum market, the position of the gumdiggeis has become a somewhat hard one. I believe, however, as do many others, that the present low price will be but temporary, and that their distress is not likely to long continue. There is, therefore, hope that gumdiggers will soon be " out of the bush " once more, and earning at their business as good returns as ever.