THE DUKE'S VISIT TO ROTORUA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVIII, Issue 11711, 22 July 1901, Page 6

THE DUKE'S VISIT TO ROTORUA.

DESCRIBED BY AN OFFICER OF THE ESCORT. The crowds which tramped or drove or rode to fill the towns were not of drawingroom manners or of Bond-street tailoring, but they were—Genuine. Nowhere in the Royal progress has a keener personal interest been shown in all that concerned the guests. /Nowhere has there been so much of spontaneous welcome from groups cheering in concert. If the satisfaction felt by the Duke and Duchess is in any way commensurate with that expressed by their boats, the visit of New Zealand must stand as a complete and conspicuous success. :'.'". That the towns put on gala dress goes without saying, and considerable originality was displayed in many cases. In the profusion of foliage and verdure with which the streets were decked was a notable contrast to the scanty greenery which barren but loyal Aden gathered by camel-loads from across the deserts to build one single arch: of' welcome. And, of course, Maori art was represented everywhere. Maori! Once mention the word, and one is almost inspired, so deep and so lasting are the impressions left by a visit to Maoriland—wonderland, fairyland. But other pens than mine, wielded .by writers of greater knowledge, must deal with.details, as indeed a member of the Auckland press has done in vivid and powerful word-paint-ing. I can speak only of generalities, yet I must needs speak, though a Dante and none less is needed to do justice to the subject. Had he prescience of the land of geysers and fountains when he pictured in his Inferno the circle of seething and boiling mud, where the heart of Mother Earth beats and pulses close to the skin of her bosom, and from the unknown depths well up now water, now mud,. now murky - and sulphurous.fumes? The visitor to Rotorua feels as much appalled as astonished, and prays that the day may be far distant when cheap modernity shall invade and belittle the workshop of the primal forces of nature. Imagine and shudder at the thought, a German hotel proprietor and a French chef working their wicked wills in Maoriland! As it was, all was in the most convincing harmony with the surroundings. Nothing less than the Maori gathering could have enhanced the' weird fascination of Nature at Rotorua. It was a display unique in the memory of man, and not to be repeated in the future. It may be that; a gathering of the Highland clans a century ago, or the' muster at the civic games of Greece in classic days, would serve as parallel, but neither we nor our sons shall ever look on the like again. The camera and the kinematograph may reproduce what met the eye, but no theatre audience can ever ' rise to the thrill of novelty or the tenseness ,' of expectation which held Royalty and gen- . tlefolk and commoner wide-eyed and open-: eared' when face to face with the last remmant on earth of primeval man in the ecstasy and frenzy of passion simulated till it was all but real—near naked, and unashamed. 5 Not that any touch of a degrad- ' ing element marred the dances of welcome ' or of homage or of war. La Bete humaine it was, but of the nobler kind, using liberty and not license in the expression of the emotions.' And whether viewed as a spec- ' tacular effort or as the supreme product of severe gymnastic training, or as homage ' to the great chief from oversea, it will rank in our memory as a display without \ possible parallel. ' ■ As a lesson in history, too, it was impressive in the last degree. Maoris were there ' , who had fought with us or against us in j wars not yet forgotten. Tribesmen met . courteously who had waged bitter internecine war in the old cannibal days, when ' the warrior battened on the flesh of the foe he slew, gaining, as he supposed, all the virtue and strength of the dead whom he devoured. Side by side with veterans of ; pagan times were children from the Chris* ; tian schools. Gigantic, half-naked men, whose savage blood was but thinly covered. 1 nibbed shoulders with , frock-coated and silk-hatted Maori gentlemen who have assumed, not the veneer, but the reality of civilisation. . Yet even these last were not proof against the contagion of the Bacchic frenzy of the war dance, and "more than one trim townsman stripped himself to a gantlin' to join in the immemorial orgy of his , race. There was pathos too in the spectacle; It was but a scanty remnant that ; remained of the Maori clans, only scores 1 where thousands had used to chant no mimic • battle song, and to dance down to the fray ; in deadly earnest. "Must civilisation," one was compelled to moralise, " inevitably dej stroy all that is purely picturesque and frankly unsophisticated? Must the march - of evolution infallibly doom to extinction ' all that does not fit material ends?' Mo--1 dern man pays a heavy price for his su- • periority—a superiority whose claims one is ' tempted at times to question. - ' , ' The finale was as artistic as it was na- * tiiral. Chief after chief filed past the Royal ': prasence, casting down gifts of hereditary ' heirlooms, weapons and gauds and emblems '. whose value could not be priced in coinage ; , and we seemed to be watching the Roman [ gladiators""" march past Casar's throne, i "Morituri te salutant," for never again can the event be repeated. Nor was there want- , ing the one touch of human nature needed to complete the perfect round, for when a tiny mite carrying a gift could not reach ' far enough to throw in her offering our Prin--1 cess stepped down with a kindly smile to take it from the hand of the little dusky ; maid. The Duke and Duchess donned ! Maori mats and feathers —a strange sight t for a military tailor or a court milliner to witness. But nothing was impossible, noth- ; ing too strange to be true, at Rotorua. The Duke's speech was a real masterpiece of florid oratory, calculated exactly to suit i the occasion and to lend itself to viva-voce ■ translation on the spot, when it was punc- ; tuated with hoarse guttural grunts of ap- ' plause. We returned to ship, and duty, in our steel-bound materialistic surroundings the : fresher and better for a trip backwards in time into fairyland and romance; and now, 1 looking back over troublous and wind-swept ; seats which we have since crossed, our experiences seem to be fading into the of a dream, which we cannot, though we would, Melbourne Argus.