SOME IMPRESION OF ROTORUA.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLV, Issue 13650, 18 January 1908, Page 1 (Supplement)

SOME IMPRESION OF ROTORUA.

BY A NEW CHUM.

To begin the journey! I am one of those people who would like at the commence-, menfc of a long journey to take a good dose - of choloroforrn and not waken till my destination was reached. But for once the joui-r ney from Auckland to Rotorua left no desires for choloform in my breast whatevei, which says much for the trip. After the train had thrown off Putaruru. and one or two small stations, it begins to climb steadily over the ranges that- skirt Botorua, sidling along the upper side of a gulch or gully, covered with bush and native fern. At such a slow pace do we snort and chuff, that an artist might- easily sketch tree trunks, ferns, boulders, and things—and what studies are offered as he went along. Then when the —Mount Marnaku— been passed, the steady, even run down into the basin below, with thblue lake and wistful hills in the distance, is none the less bewitching. Rotorua itself comprises practically two townstKe old native part Ohinemutu and the new, where the shops and dwellings fairly dazzle you with their red, white, and; green colourings. The wide whit®, glisten-; ing streets are planted on either side with? trees, - not unlike the suburban streets of*. London and American cities. One's first; impressions are favourable. One thing one discovers immediately—one has reached a spot where there is positively something in the air worth breathing— something worth expanding the lungs for. I went neck cut up the streets for awhile for the sheer pleasure of breathing it, so heady and exhilarating is it to the jaded traveller. Of course the Sanatorium Grounds are a striking featureand you get there without finding them—to be everybody does. And, natural if you have never seen anything like them before —and nobody ever has —you are impressed. If you are a New Zealander your breast burns within you, and your blood bubbles like a geyser —with pridelove of country, and so on! And if you are not a New Zealander—well, you just feel on looking around you,-that you've been cheated of something, and you take a seat aud think things over. But the spot lias -also its pathetic bright, young faces belonging to wasted or sometimes contorted, twisted limbs, go by in bath chairs continually—young men not more than in the twenties limp along painfully in various stages of convalescence; old men and women creep on crutches —all crippledom seems there. One breathes a prayer of pity, and another of thankfulness that one is not afflicted as some men are. Yet there are brighter scenes to hand too. The bowling green, tennis and croquet courts are thronged with prettily dressed girls and beflanneled men, enjoying to the-full all the joys and pleasures that ripe, abundant health permits them to enter into. They try and compare the baths, sip the " waters" with glee, just for the fun of the thing! ..... But leaving the haunts of civilisation, and walking a possible mile or less by the lake one may drop into the old, and . native part of the 'town, Ohinemutu, a regiou of whsres, carved houses, and churches. Hero the Maoris' squat about, smoke their pipes, play " pitch and toss," work should they want to, and generally enjoy themselves.^ On a small promonotory reaching out into the lake, stands the Anglican Church— Whakapone, or St. Faith—a pretty, little building, and the most striking ..feature of the village. 'Service, is conducted th<? ( re every Sunday in Maori—unless sufficient pakehas attend, when it is in English. I went -one Sunday morning. The church was well filled with natives—from infants in arms to grev-headed, wizened, bowed, aged of ageds, l" should say. In some faces the wrinkles made more patterns than the tattoo. The women came shawled, and handkerchief-headed, for the most part, save perhaps, the younger ones who wore hats, and were trying—so one of the old and wrinkled- ones explained with much contempt —to be " flash." - When the first " himene" was given out and the strains of " Old Hundredth" filled the building, one rose with a strange yet appropriate thrill to join in that stirring, commanding adoration, "All People That on Earth Do Dwell!" the rolling liquid Maori" Nga tangata. enoho nei ite whenili"—the thin, weaker, English rose up, and out. of the open windows, one chorus of praise to the Groat Creator, the Great Shepherd who gathers His flock from all races, all colours, all parts of the earth. The Psalms were chanted in a peculiar, weird harmony, that at first reminded one of the humming note in the croaking of frogs. If you don't go to sleep 011 your legs, you get quite to like it by the time three 'or four Psalms have been gone through, and realise that there is something 111 a musical monotone after all. The sermon in an unintelligible language, gave, one an opportunity to think, and I decided to make a. sermon 011 my own. But I had hardly fixed upon a. text when a, whole series of distractions occurred. Through the open easement windows one could see the lake, blue, and sparkling, as it rippled in, with clumps of flax blades beating backwards and, forwards in the breeze. Every now and then a canoe paddled past, - and one could see numbers of men, white men and Maoris, along the shore fishing. This was tantalising— forgot my text and fell to pondering the possible pleasure' and possible wickedness of fishing on Sunday morning. And the more alluring the picture became, the more convinced 1 was as to the wickedness of it. "My mouth twitched to say something, and my hands clenched themselves like the preacher's, but mv congregation was all outside those wicked men in the boats. At length it was over—l mean the other roan's sermon —and we filed out. 1 asked one or "two speaking natives it they could tell me the text. They hadn t the remotest. idea, and considered it yen- tunny that I should have asked. ' ell. , I said, " can vou give me any hint at all as to what the sermon was about'.'" Their faces lit up immediately. "Ah, yes, it was all about the first Maori missionary who was shot by his own people when preaching to them—his dying charge being to deliver his Bibk: into the hands of one who stood by, pleading, " Tell them all to read that—and thev will find Him—the Saviour." I went away reflectively, for I aid not know that the' Mhori Church had its mar-

tvrs too. " Passing through the pa I found i was just in time to gee the .Sunday dinners coming out of the steam-holes — most appetising dinners they looked —all cooked to a turn.' Camp ovens, kettles, saucepans, piedishes, basins tied up in cloths, nil were lifted out and claimed by their different dark-skinned owners. Seeing my curiosity one or two Mine forward with a smile and lifted the lids, from the steaming dishes One man had an oven full of—well, I should have called it a beef-steak pudding, tor 50 peoplehe called it bread—and intimated with pride that it was a great success. I was informed that you could cook anything at all in a steamhole —even to a jam sponge — don't know whether this latter item would be a success cooked that, way but the housewives of Auckland will know. 'Hearing that there were some curious mud pools—lobster and porridge pots—to be seen in the vicinity, I selected two small urchins from a crowd who were dousing their legs in a smoking pool, and with a little persuasion induced them to show me the way. Both spoke perfect fluent English, but preferred along the way, for reasons best known to themselves, to converse in Maori. When explaining the nature and function ot the porridge pot. the younger, who was the most voluble, said she had been accustomed at one- time to show tourists round regularly, . butwith a shake of the shoulders—had given up the occupation now, because it really "bored her too much." She was about 11, according to her own statement— at what age she touted L tourists* I wold not say.