WHERE THE WHITE MAN TREADS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 15140, 2 November 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

WHERE THE WHITE MAN TREADS.

SOME PEOPLE I HAVE KNOWN. l » 1 No. IV. i " BY W. 8., TB KUITI. No on® now alive besides myself, and, maybe, some other, "who when he shall read this narrative will remember to have heard why Ruth Blair waited in. the Homeland year in and. year .out for , the return of her beloved with a patience and fidelity the present ago, where the race is to her of roomiest skirt and lightest shod, has long looked upon as too cumbrous an impediment to burden its travel with. For though sex emotions are by synthesis the same now as then, " then" was an age when she still recognised that physiology decreed her only function to be the mothering of the race, and not a mad yahoo of competition with her male companion to fill poets her divine Call of Race Mother | rigorously prohibits her. Those were days when the sorcery of things distant drew men from farm, from counting-house, from everywhere, to verify the tidings returning wanderers found pleasure in to-magnify. Among others who heard these tales was Cupar Millar, a young laird of some Highland glen, whose name escapes me, and does not matter. But lairds were in those days not too well off, especially those families lately harried by Cumberland's dragoons, and only escaped his gallows by a timely hiding of all incriminating evi- ' dence of revolt,' but, nonethejess, were , treated to indignities the hot Scot's heart hoped some day to amply recompense, of whose family Cupar Millar was one; but in the meantime he joined the whaling brig Traveller's Bride, of Dundee, as a man before the mast and sailed for the South Seas, when for a time we lose sight of him. Aa previously mentioned' lin these sketches of " People I Have Known," whaling crews were of all occupations and nationalitieseecaped convicts, free and volunteer, which latter neither asked for, nor received pay, nor shared in the " lay" of the oil obtained; who joined for adventure, and by this inexpensive mode of travel to visit lands rumour and tale had glorified, come continuing the voyage, insatiably curious to know what lay beyond; some to drop off where fancy invited, enchanted with the life of ease on some line island paradise, maybe also glamoured by the ravishment of some pagan goddess—if brown, what matter, so long as cupid be content. The southern ocean in those days lay an uncharted wilderness. What strange, in the hap then, should an occasional sea cruiser be wrecked and the survivors months await a passing ship to take them off, fortunate if she struck an island whoso aborigines, not yet indurated by distrust : of the white man's guile, received them with heathen hospitality. This happened i to the Traveller's Bride, who, dragging her anchors on the northern coast of the Chathams, became a total wreck. These islands, 1 thickly populated by an inoffensive, and in ; consequence now extinct, race, already i described in these columns, were about 1 that time (1820-30) selected for sealing and j shore , inhaling _ station*, and when our j Traveller's Bride struck there~iom© of heat: j crew, including Cupar Millar, set up a « rival station, and here our tragedy begins. But not yet; that" what follows may be ] understand, I must premise, that though j the Morion was a creature 0 no { statuesque intelligence, and primal in his < relishes, his decalogue in code and practice j was well above the average. This refers ] especially to his women, who, very stupid x no doubt, nor worldly-wise like her Maori s

sisters, were yet very human in their sex affections, and these, once placed, no rata tree was wider rooted. The custom of that day demanded that where the white man trod he should make deep footprints with his vices, for virtues did not preponderate among his kind what time it. walked abroad. And as the stamp of men upon such pilgrimage precluded even the commonest moralities, and inoffensive native races were regarded as were human freaks, to be treated as the humour then and there inspired, it followed that these man-tigers, unrestrained by Mrs, Grundy, law, or mutual bashfulness of shame, permitted themselves orgies of license, even the elemental " savage" revolted at! It was no unusual scene for the head man of a station, when ho heard of a handsome native woman, to c'.st off the one then under his protection, and, making up a party, to forcibly abduct the new discovery, and should her husband or people object, to coolly shoot them down, or, if in. an attic mood, to hang up the creatures by the legs and build a fire under them Some were generous and offered to purchase his fee simplo by proffering him nonmolestation if ho would urge the stupid woman to be complaisant and accompany the disheritor! It may be asked : Why resuscitate these past enormities ? To which l answer with Herodotus : That the historian must know neither race, nor creed, nor friendship, if he would transmit true records of his time for the information of posterity. And not future posterity alonecounting from the era when these episodes were acted, this is posterity. Why should not the present listen to deeds of some 80 years ago ? And it does so listen with importunate avidity. A very dreary saw informs us that manners, however good, when placed contiguous to communications that are evil, will not remain corruption-proof, and Cupar Millar verified the same. For we have it on authority that ho also fell in line with that day's morals, and cast about him for a native wife; not, maybe, so much from low desire, as to avoid the odium which attended those who, remembering stray fragments of home-training, would have stood apart. The aggregation of rascality which met on this from law and order segregated calling acted just as instant passion prompted. Here virtues were not-_ permitted to parade their insolence without rebuke even among mem-" bars of one party, much less would they be borne from those of rival stations, where loaded muskets from behind a barricade of casks, whoso camber, when stood side by side, presented musket-rests and portholes whence assailants could be potted 'with a minimum of risk, were no unusual features to a mutual interchange of social , amenities and a settlement of ethic pole- ' mics. So it befel one day upon a pigeon shoot that, penetrating where no white foot had yet trodden, ho came upon a native village in the forest, around whose fire hutched a knot of maidens, from among which ho selected the handsomest and made up to her, and called her, as we shall, Dolly, a preference distinction not at all obnoxious to the foolish girl. For just consider the prestige among her friends to be chosen from among them all by a young white man of square-cut jaw and iron will ! Not that he declaimed of love, where neither understood the other's language : When Wild calls to Wild, is there not sign speech and the Esperanto of the eyes? So it further befel that presently she followed him, and we have it on the same authority that her people under his direction built them a whare some distance from the camp, and, having, regard to their several capacites, that each was satisfied. And thus six months passed, and in passing whispered Ruth Blair to be very patient.

The little bay on whoso shores one day in midsummer, years ago, a battle was lost and won for the proprietorship of Dolly still receives its ocean caresses, and no one to-day would guess that here tragedies were done! For it had come to the ears of Afl&etoS* the head ms of an oggp-

SltlOi shore whaling camp, and spies confirmed the same, that Cupar's native wife was handsome,, and, as is the 'nature of rumour, her comeliness was magnified, until Ankle ton could bear the strain no longer, and, calling on his crew of desperadoes, set out to ravage her. But even villainy has seasons of remorse, and a traitor sent Cupar word of the intended raid, who thereupon despatched her to a cave two miles away to await the issue of the fight. I have picked up bullets on that battlefield, and heard the tale that one of the actors had to tell: " We knew they were a comin' because Cross-fingered Jim. scratched it on a flaxblade an sent it to Cupar by a native. So we built a barricade of oil oasks, two tiers high, an' waited. First they went to Cupar's house, an', findin' it empty, set fire to it. When wo saw the smoke we knew they would come to our camp an' t seek her. .What we were eared on was that they would catch one of her people an' make him tell where she was hid. So when they came out of the bush we histed No-thumb Trumper's woman in her red gc-wn, same as Dplly's, on to the barricade to howl an' jeer at 'em. That brought 'em at a run. We let 'em come clost an' ast 'em what they come fur. Stid o' tellin', they tried to crowd us, an' we let 'em have it—low, so's to cripple 'em. Ankleton went down with a smashed kneecap. An other got it in tho belt. The rest of our shots passed between their legs. An' on they come, fifteen of 'em. some with cutlashes an' some with guns, an' tried to tumble down our barricade, an' the eight of us inside pushin' lances 'tween the camber o' the casks. Sudd'nly they heaves a topmost cask in on us, an' Cupar rushes to the breach. Then One-tooth Jake makes a dash at him an' cuts his face off as if it had been planed off with a jack-plane! Lad, it were jist splendid, that fight .vere! I spiked one through the lungs ! But they couldn't; get in, an' after pickin' up their carcases went off i Then ketchin' one of Dollv'a people, they hangs him over a fire till he tells where she is . hid. But she fought 'em like a tiger-cat, an' rather than be caught, lep down the cliff. There we found an' berried her

Some years later a man worked in a New Zealand garden, and when he turned I saw two eyes stare from a blank expanse of face. Then I remembered the tale of Cupar Millar. ■ For how could he go home to Ruth Blair and explain? Such were 6ome tragedies folk wanton of repute must dree for recompense!