MUSINGS ON MOUNT HOBSON

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIII, Issue 13325, 3 November 1906, Page 1 (Supplement)

MUSINGS ON MOUNT HOBSON

■! PENSYL VAKIA. Who shall mirror, forth the beauty of a morning lapped in the softest of October breezes'; spanned from horizon to horizon by the tehderest, bluest, sweetest of spring skies? -Who shall describe the magic of the hours that stretch from dawn to dusk on such a day? Let anyone, however, who has the daring to attempt the task take Mount Hobson fortius point, of view, and though the mirror he may hold to Nature be a poor one some of her glamour may be caught, some of her mysterious charm' reflected. . . vSurely a lovely spot ; a splendid coign of vantage, from whence the ever-seeking eye may find its fill in gazing. . . ." Mystic and beautiful, indeed, whitest of white samite are the cloudy islets set in empyrean sapphire, inviting us ■'.. • > . . to go and rest With heroes in the islands of the blest. Very soothing is their message as they flit or sweep along, sometimes merging into others, or dispersing. Fairy wraiths, indeed, floating here and sinking there ; fading .into the sunlight, shimmering on that far sea-line in misty, vaporous embrace. , How glorious the gulf we gaze upon': How soft its azure, how varied in its tints- Just yonder faintly blue, and there, still farther, is it lambent pearl? or breadths of changing opal, broidering the distant-V-each, beading with lucent silver those. emerald and amethystine hues that cheat the" eye like Proteus. Surely the old water-god lias changed his habitat, and left Carpathian seas to reflect the purple loveliness of Rangitoto. . ; . How its far- i reaching classic line, its sweet severity invites, delights. . . . How Olympian it looks, especially when manteled, as it is so often by the morning mists surrounding Auckland and its harbour like a robe of fleece. With what royal grace has it uncovered to the sun, with what royal dignity unclothed it to its mighty feet. As we pay it homage musing fancies hold us in; their thrall; the tranquil vision passes, and a lurid sea reflects a flaming cone and rays far spread in, space. . . . What growth subsisted there before this smiting? .....Or was there bare, infertile rock till red-hot Vulcan breathed upon it? Who shall say? We learn at least that fire does not infertilise; that out of its fearful crucible is born the theatre of life the "red earth" of Adamic man. The word recalls us from our waking dream, and we remember that " man made the, town"—the city lying just below. Its hum is in the ear; its beauty calls and captivates. Say what Corinthian charm could weave a spell like Auckland, or if in' all the world its loveliness could be surpassed. Some may think, and they have every right to think, that Mount Hobson has a rival in'the more extensive prospect from One-tree Hill, the city's proud possession, Cornwall Park. If so. Pensyl Vania will not quarrel, for each is in its way incomparable.! The rose could not be sweeter were there neither lily nor carnation. . . And that recalls—for here the rosy escalonia and glossy laurestinus, the snowy Indian May and starry periwinkle are in bloom. Shrubs and grasses, trees and palms of various girth and stature border the mountain paths and buttress here and there the terraces partly formed by hand of man and partly by that great providing force which taucht the Maoris, like invading Britons, to '.' guard their own;" to provide their wives and pickaninnies and braver selves with munition in abundance. Here, again, imagination plays, and conjures to itself. the armed camp, the dusky.-;, war-, riors-; the planned attack, arid bold repulse. 'Foemen, dwelling now in storied fame, fought on these heights,- and chieftains, than whom no braver ever leapt to action, received their death blow. Their gallantry commands our : admiration, and with . something of penitential pride it r:is recorded. C; With what bitterness of spirit with what sadness of surrender was their right to this noble territory lost, their independence stifled, never more to " drink delight of battle with their peers." Great in' war and poetry, great in romantic chivalry, barbaric Caesars', we salute thy shades! But there are others—of our own loved race—who cannot be forgotten when the spirit dwells with pride upon the heroes of the past. Heroes, not always militant, not always doing those high deeds which call for 'monumental tribute, yet heroes still. Hewers of "trees and tillers of soil, dwellers in the backblocks ; embryo merchants on the makeshift wharves ; the mighty pioneers who. though a feeble folk in number, were as Samsons in their day. They laid foundations; their successors built, strongly and wisely, beautifully or otherwise let "the gazer from .Mount Hobson say, for there below and far away as sight may follow "■ are evidences of -our. fathers' skill. Houses, gardens, fortifications, a noble dockyard and extended wharves speak for those early efforts, those Titanic strains and struggles." Struggles upon which for more than half a century stern Rangitoto and her green twin-sisters of the channel have frowned and smiled while the glittering Waitemata met its borders with a gay caress, or washed them in its sobbing surge. ... To-day there is a. lovely smile upon its dimpled' face, broken onlv by the trail of steamer or barge.. See, there is one outgoing, and there a ship incoming, skirting with'' all the grace of conscious beauty the' emerald North Head. White-sailed yachts —a flying squadron sweeping on like winged' spirits to a wider sea, to touch still happier isles, maybe. . . . And there, bevond. how glorious the purple glow on Colville. ... Entrancing ! But the eye is satiated and travels homeward, back to the many-fea-tured city reposing like a carcanet of subtly studded " jewels upon the border of the stream, speaking as nothing else could speak of years more than half a century agone, when times were hard and hardwon reputations ruthlessly assailed ; when the first New Zealand Governor— gallant naval officermaintained the Royal trust reposed in him and died a broken-hearted an. ... It cheers one to remember that there is a Nemesis of justice, as of doom, and that Auckland, fairest of fancities, is the monument of Captain Hobson by popular acclaim. ' But now high noon " knocks at our hearts," to quote a, poet who, was, perhaps, too "young" to care whether it beat upon his head. Pensyl Vania is not so constituted, and seeks both rest and shade, that every lovely detail may be studied. Sunshine, powerful sunshine, if well screened, is so life-giving, and the sea now shimmering in its quivering glow, dancing and glancing, communicates a thrill. Looking northward you feel instinctively that those stern . Barriers, "Great and "Little," are reposing in its beams, and wonder, as you have never landed on them, what rich fruits ripen on those purple stretches. . . Are they lotus-eating, the happy dwellers on those ranges, which seem so far away; or do they lead a hand-to-mouth existence? Crude, discreditable thought. How can they? And as one asks the question, sweet choric music falls upon the ear: — With half-dropt eyelid still, Beneath a heaven dark and holy. To watch the long bright river drawing slowly His waters from the purple hill. To hear the dewy echoes falling From cave- to cave thro' the thick twined vine— To watch the emerald-coloured water falling Thro' many <-• wov'n acanthus wreath divine; Only to hear and see the far-off sparkling brine, Only to hear were sweet stretched out beneath the pine. Further up the mountain, in the silence which as yet no whirring insect penetrated, and . the rush of train or tram goes past unheeded, the rounded crest is gained, and outlying districts, bounded by the mighty waters of the Manukau, come into view. Such fresh spring greenness ; such tapestry of field and hedge ; such vivid purples; such transcendent blue. Here and there the scarping of extinct volcanoes, showing rich and ruddy; here and there the isolated beauty of ? mansion, everywhere the homely cottage or the smiling farm; while far away in faint and lnusy distance are the, mountain ranges, heavenlifted, heaven-lifting, immutable, yet moving.