PAGES OF THE PAST

Taranaki Daily News, 8 March 1924, Page 11

PAGES OF THE PAST

(By

"Juvenis.")

A PROTRACTED VOYAGE/

WELLINGTON ,TO NELSON

The wind seemed inclined to shift; we therefore re-embarked into our boxed-up quarters, and sent ashore a package of wearables and edible comforts for the crushed being of the hut, protected by the “Savage” against her own inhuman race. In the evening we weighed anchor ■ with a fair wind, and gazed a sad adieu i upon the little island that contained i such a victim of brutality, in the Ameri- j can lady. During the night, two of the ; “old hands” on board were discussing . the relative states of the weather in ■ Cook Straits, from which it was .gleaned i that the winters were generally calmer, than those of summer periods, and that the approaching season was considered to be better for catching whales. However, during the next day the angry north-west came up again and the implacable wind with the tide drove us back over the whole of our course till we thrashed into Cloudy Bay and dropped anchor under some sheltering land, with the snow-covered Kaikouras 9,000 feet high in full, view again. Here we received the visits of crews from the whaling station, and heard of the welfare of Mrs. Guard and family (of the Harriet wreck aid massacre). To the southward of our anchorage lay the district of Wairoa, and we were prepared to pay it a visit in one of the whale boats, when the recall flag was hoisted, and they hurried after a whale which was leisurely blowing at intervals in the offing, causing a' splendid race between the boats. After three days’ endurance of a “hard gale,” contorted good humours, politeness, and growings, a “slant of wind” gave our miserable skipper an excuse to try it again. Two days’ hard hammering, and an exquisitely tantalising night of light airs, with a forward and course of the tides, when the' anchor was W. go in the “glad waters” of Charlotte Sound, attended withJthA letting off of all our long bottled-up exuberant spirits. Here were oysters in abupdance —sufficient for a fleet of ships’ crews, enticing the indulgence therein to an alarming extent, with the assistance of bottled stout and biscuits. By this time, all incongruous humours, both fore and aft, of our light little craft, were pretty well toned down; the hearts of “Jacks” were gladdened by incentives of “short nips,” and passengers, by scrambles over the rugged hills. A DISGUSTED SKiPPER. Next day we received the visits of two small canoes, with some interesting old men and boys; a few presents elicit-

sd from them promises of some dealings in potatoes, and whatever they might have to tell. On the- following morning the same representatives of the places came off from the opposite side with our kits of potatoes, and a few strings of dried eels. Upon expressing our surprise at this small instalment, we found that their food was tabooed by their chief Haremeana, for the expected visit of Te Rangihaieta. This threw a damper upon, the spirits of our skipper, for he was in hopes to “fill up” for the Nelson market, besides providing for his passengers. His disappointment shortly became chronic, and was in unmeasured terms vented upon all around (in gusts of the utmost colonial asperity) over the voyage, countjy and winds; suspecting each one in their turn on board to be the “Jonah,” save himself; and so he went forth into the familiar Straits again after about two days’ stay upon short allowance of cigars, biscuits, beer and pork, finding “sweets in our adversity” in hauling on board numbers of barracouta, with pieces of red flannel shirt at the end of our lines, towing astern from our weary little ship; and also on the nights, enjoying the quietude of the “Ancient Mariner,” whilst speculating upon the glorious ’orbs above, on the broad pf our backs. Happy are the delights of this state of existence, interspersed with tribulations, rendering the former so enjoyable when attained, and so felt we simple voyagers upon entering the bay or gulf (discovered by Tasman, two centuries ago), round at last Stephen’s bold isle, aJfter the many tedious days out from Port Nic, some 50 miles distant. NELSON REACHED. GlaJ were the adventurous travellers upon Entering into a new climate; the sea breeze filling each sail with a kindly disposition to which we had been unused to in the Straits. At the head of the bay a wide extent of available country appeared, sheltered between the eastern and western ranges; running down the coast we found ourselves at early morning at anchor, alongside a pebbly spit, stretching from the coast nine miles across a trend inwards of the land in a direct line between some rocks.

Between the end o*f this remarkable wash-up of boulders —like a Holland dam run along to reclaim a shoal bay—and the shore rocks, a passage is left for the entrance of a vessel at flood tide. In running this entrance, we rapidly passed a new immigrant ship, the iFifeshire, broadside and upright, upon the rocks, like an ominous scare-object, and destined to be removed from the gaze of prejudice by means of dissecting tools

or gunpowder. A short distance from the entrance, inside the boulder bank, the shoal water brought us to an anchor safe as in a mill-pond. Our pilot through this speedy navigation was a tall personage, with an air of promptitude arid command, conveying the impression that he was the man to take care that no more such casualties—as the one of the Fifeshire—should take plaerf while he had charge of harbour matters

A pathway was made round the beach to the valley of Nelson, with its shoal shore, over which a bullock team carried our luggage. The marked-out road — with signs of the commencement of a town in various groups—was cut up into deep mire, and the high charges ■ demanded for dray hire were well earned by the driver, the Honourable Mr. B , who, in his progress, got a wheel bogged up to the axle, and in true colonial\ style, W/ielded his long whip over his six bullocks with the vigour and determination of a mud-beplastered Ajax. At the northern end of the valley, or township, a small stream rushed over the pebbly bottom through a mixed bush, and on the banks of which a little canvas village appeared. Clear and bright wpre the days, with a little frost..at , night; the natives few in number, and industriously at work putting up contract whares fbr the new comers. Every capacious mud fireplace 'brought around it both gentle and simple with sociable yarns and pipes, whilst under highsounding names with “hotels” after them written up, and in two instances denoting billiard tables inside, the young bloods and choice spirits of the elite would congregate for the purpose of indulging in their very acme of human pastime, that of dissipating all that they were possessed of. No momentous reports of war disturbed business hours, nor imperiously warned the young explorers of the country. The population was upwards of 2.000; provisions were generally high; flour about £45 to £4O per ton; but pork and potatoes were th e regular staple articles of consumption. INCIDENTS IN COURT. The great native difficulty was not expected as likely to affect them, until an assault was committed at Motueka, on the other side of the gulf, by a native of purely a domestic nature. At this time, a personage named Thompson held quixotic and full magisterial sway in Nelson, and was a protege of Colonial Secretary Shortland, who sent him from the Bay of Islands, and insisted with naval imperativeness to uphold him in his appointment, even against a memorial of nearly two-thirds of the inhabitants of Nelson The Motueka charge k was the cause of a memorable display of Thompson’s excitable temperament in Court, and was sufficient to show his unfitness or lunacy It appeared that poor Brooks, the interpreter of the New Plymouth conferences, was absent, and no one at Nelson could be found to avail of as a substitute to interpret the hearing of the charge, until it occurred to the magistrate that he had heard our friend Nugent holding a confab with the

Maoris. A constable was therefore de-' spatched to the suppbsed Maori linguist, with the R.M.’s compliments. Our •friendreflected for a moment on possible points in his procedure that could be construed!' into the.law’s infringement, and asked the cause of this invitation; upon which he gleaned from the constable that it arose from Nugent being acquainted'

with Maori, and that his services wera required in a matter of “Crown * and dignity,” and requested that Nugent would attend the Court. Nugent thereupon returned compliments to His Worship, and an assurance that he had been misin- f formed of his qualification to enact so important a part, being but a new arrival in the country. This reply incited the despotic magistrate to dance on tip-toe (his favourite one), which culminated in a mandate to the awestricken executor of the law thas he was to bring the delinquent into hia presence immediately. To save further, ridicule Nugent placed himself into custody, ( and was presented in Court before the excited magnate, where, finding no expostulation of any avail, he consented to give a specimen of his usual mode of conversing with the Maoris, and addressing one standing near, he poured, forth a ludicrous melody of broken. Maori, French and Italian, creating some painfully smothered titterings; but the profound air of gravity with which it was uttered, the fixed vacant look of the R.M., threw most of the hearerg into an unseemly shaking of the sides, by pent-up feelings, which at length found vent outside in roars of laughter. The: adjournment of the Court was then, ordered till the return, of the official interpreter.