WHERE THE WHITE MAN TREADS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIV, Issue 13491, 18 May 1907, Page 1 (Supplement)

WHERE THE WHITE MAN TREADS.

A STRANGE HISTORY. BY W. 8., TE KUITI. [ALL EIGHTS P.B3ERVED.] If you are not on the Glentunnel railw station at and before seven o'clock in t morning you will miss your train to Ghri church. It is only a flag station, with river-shingle paved platform, across whi if it be winter a bowel-less snow wind fr< the great dividing range tweaks nose-ti and. ear-lobes with familiar impertinent Up and down this, in the grey of a winte dawn, I and an elderly man, clean-shav and clad in a deer-stalker suit and wai overcoat, kept sentry-go with the step a precision of two friends' in deep conven But we were neither friends nor kin ; i had not even bid each other the usual courl ous up-country good morning when we m on the platform. Presently, an extra pi fiigate gust snatched at wrap and cap, up which he said, as if 110 previous siler lay between us: " Heu! this is as bleak the Aucklands!" "All," I assented in impersonal tone, "you have been there Then he stopped and peered into my fai I also stopped, .expecting him to continue for there was that in his mien and gestt which absurdly recalled a past scene ve similar to —as if we had met here 1 fore, which we certainly had not. Just th the train, with the rising winter's sun bui ishing its single head-light, wriggled rou a curve like some dream-horrible. I- cot not think of the word, so I said aiuud : " 'I he ngarara" ("Lo! a reptile"). Upon tl he pivoted round and peered at me agaii "Do you speak Maori I nodded; a without a word he held out his han "First or second?", lie asked, when t train drew up, as if a further companic ship were the logical ending to this init acquaintance. "Second," I said. •"I wa to be among the people. I have no time examine mummy-cases!" At which smiled, - and selecting contiguous seats in half-empty compartment we began a camai derie, which continued unbroken until be time at the quiet Wellington Hotel, Tuai street, Christchurch, during which he i lated a sequence of events, which even who have heard many strange and lawk episodes—some of which I have seen, a others touched the outer hem . of— of whi all may not be told in print, and much on listened to when the lights are out; I sa which even I could scarce believe! As it grew lighter I saw a man, not old sixty, 1 should say— that bleach tawn of skin the consanguinity of Mat and European assumes at later age. I: language, with interludes of mysticism, w terse and of a clean enunciation, with fi quent American idioms and inflections pit sant to the ear, yet pervaded with a 1 bellious protest when he touched upon 1 caste's anomalous unjust- position; and wh lie spoke of his mother you felt his iu< fable compassion for her kindred, and I indignant resentment of ' their disabiliti and restrictions, and a loathing of the s percilious ' tone and birth-slur flung at 1 class; and tellingly punctuated every poi with a counter-point. But of these latt casuistries this narrative will say little— they not written in the chronicles of t day's experience, yet do not beshame us? • When we were seated, he continued: ' was born on the Auckland Islands, and b Maori mother, lies buried there. By birt and her kin, I am; a New •. ileaiaiider; - b ' by the land of *my " father, j and : adopfcio I'am' an American citizen. My home ai the property my father bequeathed to ii is in the Pacific slope State' of Califomi . where I married a high-bred farmer's daug ter, ho knew of my caste, and only lov< me the more. My son and daughter— married are there." Then he paused, ai stared out at the passing landscape whi you counted five, and continued:. " And n dear wife is now with my mother." Of th there could be no doubt, •as anyone inig feel without looking at his face, and t] exalted faith in/-his eves. ;" I asked h before site died to - search for her and 1 her companion until. I come." And turnir to me with /alabaster trust: "I know si will do so. I have just returned from tl Aucklands by the sealer (Gratitude, whe] I have, spent a week to locate the spi where her poor shell lies awaiting the; d;; when it shall arise, brown, cliin-tattooei and beautiful as my father first saw an loved it, over sixty years ago. . My mother was a Waitahaa, ,a ra< which preceded the ft gatimamoe, . who, i their turn, were vanquished by the Nga tahu, who, again, were decimated • with 11 other engine of destruction than rum an neglect, by the pakeha. ' " What am I doing here in the centre ( the Canterbury plains? You see that hM undulating land, beneath which miners ai delving coal '' That is where tradition sa\ my mother's ancestors made their las stand against the gatimamoe before the lied into the mountains around the inlan lakes. There they buried their greenston treasures. There, to delay pursuit, an ol blind man volunteered to stay behind an tell the pursuers of buried treasure, tha I while they vainly searched for it the fug; , tives might escape. And where traditio said my mother's ancestors cached the famil tiki, I dug yesterday and found this." Her he opened his satchel and took out the largest and finest koko-tangiwai tiki I have ve seen. J j That night, by the hotel lire, he drew i cylindrical case from his pocket, and takim thence a roll of closely-written notepaper said: "Here is the history I told you of written by my father's hand; read it. Yes you can copy it, but suppress our names.' After stating his early struggles, and de parture from New Bedford, first mate o the whaling barque Ariel, Captain Jethro a Dutchman, he says: "How old Jethn got that billet God only knows; for 0 that gallant nation of sea heroes, lie wa: the most drunken, unscrupulous skipper ever trod a quarterdeck! After thre< months clawing up and down, and only ,• sick humpback in our. hold,, we reac'hec the Bay of Islands, scurvy-rotten, starved j bottom-foul, and the men in open mutiny During the next two days eight men de serted, of whom the Maoris brought bad two, and to replace the others we had t( ship any beach-scum we could get! "At that time a rumour, among shore whalers and beachcombers told of immense deposits of virgin gold in what are now known as the Sounds, the precise locality of which no one knew; but that several ill-furnished expeditions had searched in vain, and had to relinquish their quest because the fierce hostility of the all but exterminated Waitahaa rendered prospecting in small parties impossible in the vicinity where the reputedly fabulous wealth lav hidden. , , " Ono day Captain Jethro called me below, and said: * You haf hert of dis golt rumer? Well, walfisherie may be goot, bot golt . fisherie is better. Now) in our kruse sout, I haf determyned to eximane de troot of dis rebort. Vat you dink? Dis men h»"e says he haf seen some of dis golt. Now, Goff, you dell my first mate what you haf I seen.' And he turned to where a white man with an unfinished Maori tattoo 011 his face, and clad in canvas trousers and jumper, sat at the cabin table sipping a pannikin of rum. . When his wonderful tale was] ended, Captain Jethro asked again,. 'Veil, vat you dinks?' But though I distrusted the glib description, I saw no reason to damp the captain's avaricious ardour; so, provided the crew raised no objection, and Goff agreed to accompany, I agreed, and two days later saw us upon this El Doradian quest,"' ' £To be coatii«iß<J-i *