The Novelist. A TON OF GOLD! OR, THE NARRATIVE OF EDWARD CREWE.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2135, 6 November 1875, Page 4

The Novelist. A TON OF GOLD! OR, THE NARRATIVE OF EDWARD CREWE.

_ ; + By W. M. B. _ : « .

A Tale of Local Interest.

...':...♦ Chapteb Vl,— Continued. > " It was during this dilemma that some of the young men of this tribe thoufht of applying to my friend, McCosh, and he was found equal to the occasion. " He first interviewed the old chief, and finding it quite hopeless to teach him anything beyond the fixity of the thought of his great Maori heart, McCosh had recourse to the following expedient: " McCosh.—' Friend Ahoa, how many Commandments are there ?' " Old Chief.—' Te kau—ten.' " McGosh.—' No, there are eleven.' " Old Chief.—' Ah ! very dark is my heart; lam never correct.' " McCosh.--' If you will be taught by me, the bishop and the missionaries will say you are great in your knowledge, and all will be well, and as your tribe, the Ngati—— wish.' " Old Chief.—'Talk on to me.' " McCosh.—' Well, when all the people and the Missionaries are met, to bring this to a good and happy termination, you who are an old man and a great chief, will first be asked, probably, the very question I put to you just now, and you will say eleven. Then some one will be sure to tell you that there are only ten, but do not mind them; think of me, and repeat "Te kau ma tahi" —eleven. After a while you will be asked, "And what is the eleventh commandment ? " and you must say : " He ture hou taku ka hoatu nei ki a koutou, kia aroha koutou tetahi ki tetahi;" —" A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another."' " The day came at length," continued, Mr Alexander," and with it certain clergymen of the' English church, the natives receiving them with all the courtesy and gentlemanly bearing inherent in these people. " We were the only white people in the fecret, and were somewhat curious to know how it all would go off, and took up a station where;we could see and hear what passed without being observed ourselves. " By-and-by, sure enough, as McCosh had so cleverly foreseen, our patriarchal friend and pupil was spoken to, kindly al- J most affectionately* to put away his old superstitions, and, in their stead, to em-1 brace Christianity. All this the old man j understood, and replied to, after the manner of his people, in a speech of a few well-chosen words, often looking in our direction, knowing where we lay perdu. ! "This was rather alarming, for I felt sure the old fellow would appeal to McCosh if he broke down or was at fault, and that you may suppose, was a consummation we by no means desired, and I think we should have left thu place, only that was not possible without drawing the attention of all upon us. "The reverend examining clergyman felt, we thought, that his neophyte must necessarily be in a state of vacuity as to the matter in hand, and, possibly, he had been told not to expect much from so old a man. " The first two or three questions were such as conveyed a plain clue to the answer, and needed only a ' yes' or a no.' • " After a little of this, McCosh's quesion was put. " We held our breath, and wished we were a mile away. "'Te kau ma tahi' replied the old chief. The missionary party looked aghast and at each other, and those natives who were not in the secret appeared surprised at his great stupidity, and e^en those who were cognisant of my friend McCosh's coaching, looked blank. " They tried to prompt him with both natives and Europeans. True, however, to his compact with my friend, he stuck to the odd number. "There was a whispered conference amongst the clergymen, when one of them (never mind his name, it ought to have been Gamaliel) said, ' Ahoa, friend. There are but ten commandments. You, however! say these is one more. Pray tell us what that other is of which you speak' " Now was the old warrior's chance, and well he played his part, by replying to the 'astonished and greatly-relieved missionaries, 'He ture hou taku ka hoatu nei ki a koutou, kia aroha koutou, tetahi ki tetahi.' " One great dignitary of the Church was so delighted that, in the enthusiasm of the moment, he clapped our copper-coloured ancient on the back. " They asked him no more questions. What need to interrogate further a man who could quote Scripture so happily? " E. Crewe (loq)—"And do you think that most of the Maories are good and earnest Christians P " Mr Alexander (loq.)—"Well, you see, Mr Crewe, it is difficult to know what is food, and as to Christianity we have all een told how simple its tenets are; and yet there are hardly two pf us who agree together on its many complicated points of doctrine. " What piles and piles of books hare "been written on theology ! It would be a nice calculation to approximate to the number of miles they would attain in altitude if stacked on the top of one another. " There are, however, simple natural facts in this world easy for any mind one remove above an idiot to grasp, and which all admits as truths." "I say," said Janson,interrupting him, "that twenty shillings go to a sovereign is a simple fact in my estimation." Mr Alexander (log.)—" Yes, yes, Janson, you are so practical and right, too, as far as sublunary arrangements are concerned. "It 1 we ourselves mostly differ in opiu'on on religious subjects, how is it likely that these poor devils of Maories can understand much about the matters, more particularly as many of them begin to receive religious instructions late in life, and have to learn the signification of inauy new words and to match new thoughts against confirmed but verjrantagouisfcical uiipersl&'-us; They readily ad-

mit Christianity into their code of morals and way of life, but still retain a lot of their old delusions. As I may instance, the/bedevilment of men, women, and children. You see these few natives I have about me. They are, I flatter myself, more intelligent and less like to be bigotted than those up at the settlement, and yet not one of them but implicitly believes in certain powers of witchcraft, " Makutu;" and if it chanced that one of th 4 em got so bedeviled he would die of no known sickness as surely as if he was consumed by some slow noison, unless he was as it were only touched by this mental dethronement, and " E Tohunga "—a priest, telling him to strip naked and stand before him would, muttering some wonderful 1 charm, effect a cure. „ *' I have wondered at times that any of them embraced Christianity, acknowledging as they do the power of their ' Atua Maori,' and how could they help believing in the dread horror, when it was no uncommon thing to see a strong man die because he had broken some great 'TapuP' "Jf we had been Maories we should have thought the same ; indeed I do myself think that there is ' something in it,' wonderfully and mysteriously unaccountable. " The promise of a better place, a Heaven after death, was the main inducement that turned the natives to listen to the missionaries and to become Christians — it was an ecstacy of thought unknown to them before." After our return from the lake country we still had a detention of two days before the men and canoes were ready for a start down the river. I was glad of this, and should not have minded staying any length of time, amusing myself, doing nothing, unless the very mild amount of mental exertion I applied to learning Maori could be called something. I would endeayour to converse with the natives, of whom many were always about, asking the name of anything. These I would write down, and in the evening get Mr Alexander to correct my spelling and otherwise set me right. It was easy to remember words used to name anything, but to strike sentences together is more difficult, whilst thinking in English and speaking in Maori has a grotesque and unfamiliar sound to the native ear. One trouble to the learner is that natives will persist in talking easy " pigeon " Maori to new " pakehas . " perhaps that is one reason why so few Europens "talk Maori well," though many know enough of the language for ordinary purposes, such as buying or selling. Amongst others there was a native chief, I will call him "Hau Tapu," though in truth I forget his name. He appeared to have taken a great fancy to me, and wished me to start a store at his " kianga" settlement, which was about twenty miles from Mr Alexander's, where we were. He said that the natives all the country round about would bring me for sale a great amount of '■' muka," scraped flax— any quantity of pigs, and wheat without end. For, he continued, "you are, I see a tangata ngaweri,"—an " easy going fellow," —and not like Mr Alexander, who, he said was " pakeki,"—hard to deal with. My new friend " Hau Tapu " further endeavoured to induce me to come and live amongst his people by-offering me a wife. " There, she is a wife for you," he said, nodding his head in the direction of a good-looking native young lady, at that momqjit employed in scraping potatoes with a pipi-shell. " What is her name ? " I asked, hardly knowing what to say in answer to such a proposal, all the more difficult as the girl was only some half-dozen paces ofFand knew what we were talking about. " Her name is • Te Ote '•—■' Oats,' " replied my friend. I am naturally a shy man, having little or none of that worldly and very useful commodity denominated '■' cheek." However, I was curious to hear what the girl would say to the suggestion, so, with an amount of courage I did not think I possessed, I turned and asked her what she thought of this arrangament. She replied by a remark signifying that she did not know. Here was I in New Zealand, and having a wife offered for my acceptance at i every turn. And, now I think of it, I i uphold it is far the better plan for the parents or next-of-kin to settle the matrimonial alliances of the young, for the latter have in England and some few other parts, erroneous and unnatural I ideas on this subject, which are acquired from hearsay, talk, and the circulating, library. " Therefore is love said to be a child Because in choice he is so oft beguil'd." To be an old maid or bachelor is a consummation undesirable to most of us, and yet when we look round amongst our friends it is plain to see that so few are happily married, that you could count the lucky couples ("Jacks who have found their Jills") on your fingers. Why is this? Because young people and old ones, too are not the best judges of what is required in the choice of a wedded mate for themselves. If you are downright ill you send for a medical man; a doctor even rarely prescribes for himself, A man who is his own lawyer has a fool for his client, and at times we even say our prayers by prox-y. So, also, I maintain that it would be a benefit to society at large if parents or guardians sought out husbands and wives for their chiclrens, betrothing them when in their teens, and making it a legal, binding arrangement at so much money—the sum" fairly stated, if either party cried off. It was two weeks since Jauson and I had left the schooner. They were about the two happiest weeks I ever spent in my life, and I was rather loath to go, but there were the canoes loaded deep down with wheat and flax, and all were ready for the voyage down the river. " Haere, Haere," sung out those on shore to Ihonci in the canoe. " Enoho," replied the crews as they paddled away. I bade an affectionate farewell to ' Te Ote,' telling her, I am afraid, that! would be sure and come back, and that whilst I was away I should think of nothing else but of her only. I also gave her eight yards of navy blue print (which every one knows is enough for a " roundabout") two new. pipes, and ■ some tobacco; all which gifts she seemed to apprciate more than anything I could say to her. Once aboard, the stream quickly carried us round a bend, and we could see our kind friends no more. It vras mid-day when we started, and all the rest of the day until late in the even- j ing we shot along at a great rate, for the stream runs fast, and tho Maori crew stuck to their puddling manfully. Then

we made the canoes fast, and camped ashore for the night. On again the next morning, and at about two o'clock in the afternoon we arrived at our destination, when Janson, immediately set to work, with the natives' help to get his cargo into the schooner, whilst I went ashore to stretch my legs, which were cramped with long sitting in the canoe. Janson and I were. that evening again left by ourselves, and I thought as I " lay i me down" in my bunk, in the smelly, dirty cabin, that it was a change greatly for the worse, and what with fleas, and the stench from the bilge water, I was in no very amiable state of mind, and most hear ily wished myself back again in my tent on the river side, where I had slept during my stay at Mr Alexander's. The next morning we dropped down stream, coming to an anchor at the same place where we had passed the first night on our way up the river Here we got a deck-load of sawn timber, so it was afternoon beiore we were again under weight. However, we got to the mouth of the river before the tide was " done," having had a good leading wind for some distance down, and it still holding) we made our way out into the Firth, groping our way along, for by this time it was dark, by feeling the bottom as we went with a pole. The channel here is mud on one side, but sand on the other, so that it is no hard matter with a leading wind to keep right. " It was here," said Janson, " over by those mangroves, that I was once aground, if you could call such soft mud ground; it is more like treacle, being in places quite as soft; you can push a pole down into it ten feet or more, using only one finger. Well, I got stuck there once on my way up this river : the tide left me, not high and dry, but in the mud, sunk nearly a3 deep as if I had been in water. I thought it was all right, and that the next flood tide woiild take me on up the river, and no bother. You know how flat in the floor is this vessel; as the water rose the air did not get under, and the tide rising higher and higher, I could not get a rope under her. I could get nothing under the schooner, but was only able to push a pole into the mud at her side ; I also could just rock her a little by hoisting the main-boom well up the mast, and working it from side to side. The water at length was deep on the deck, and was beginning to trickle over the combings of the hatch, when up she rose with such a surge as nearly to throw us all down; however, the schooner was safe. If she had not risen when she did, but had filled with mud and water, I should have had great trouble in getting her off, more particularly as it was during a high spring tide that this happened." " Well, Janson, I hope we shall have no mishaps this voyage ; if this wind only lasts we shall be in town by morning." It seemed not only inclined to last, but took to blowing harder, and along we plunged through the sea right furiously. 1 he only drawback was now that friend Janson began to fell very ill, possibly he had eaten something that had disagreed with him; however, he fast became worse. Somehow he managed to get below, and into his bunk, where he lay helpless and groaning; he really was very ill, and I was much frightened, for I could not leave the deck to help him, indeed had as much as ever I could do to mind my steering, and as the wind began to blow harder, I wished I had some of the sail in. I also was not very sure of our course for although the night was light enough to see the loom of the land we were leaving, I could not as yet sight the other side of the Firth. There was a compass to be sure, but it was stowed away somewhere in the cabin. Janson, I was convinced, was far too ill with this terrific cramp in his stomach to look for it, and I could not leave the steering to find it with the wind as it was, so all I could do was to keep a good look-out as we rushed through the water at a tremendous rate ; We must have been running upwards of an hour when I began to see the land on the other side of the gulf, whilst the mountains astern were lost in the darkness. Janson was now a little better, he said, but would not, or perhaps could not, come on deck. On we drove before the wind for another half-hour, I was nearly sure the opening I saw ahead of me in the land was the Sand spit passage, to steer through which, however, with a gale of wind astern, and a heavy sea, was an operaration of coniderable risk, more particularly to one like myself, who had so little knowledge of the place; I had only been through the passage once before, and then as I was asleep in my bunk, I could not now possess much acquaintance with the locality. Janson had told me of the spit of sand that ran out from the cone-shaped island, and to keep well in with the rocks on the Motunou shore. On we drove ; at times I thought there was no channel ahead of us at all, and that we were steering right on to the shore, where, above the sing of the gale through the rigging, and the rush of the schooner through the water, I could hear the surf breaking angrily. " Janson ! " I shouted, "you must get up and see where we are going, it is blowing like anything, and we are close in with the shore." " You are all right," he replied, " look out for the ' break' on the spit, and keep pretty close to the other island." " Yes ; but Janson, I am not sure that we are right; it is so dark, and I was never here before, at least, to see the place I have no ambition to run the schooner ashore." " Wo fear ! " he replied, " you just steer her, the old girl knows the way ! " Paying which lio turned over in his bunk to try and sleep, utterly ignoring the possibility of hie v&uwl beCfMiiug a wreck in the course of the nmh Ike mimitan, it wts lio}J§J©Sß t«lkifl# to him, and loft nlott'i, t iiijuvmi mfM§li'to tlo my utmost to bring the sdmoim ihtoudh, :l.)hl " nh.6 n<ft% know fclie way? Whotlicr it wan i'mm ovev'tmaitemanb mid fatigue, or fvwa the inloHwe Htrain upon my cyan in tj:yiti# till tUonpj to picrco the darkness, I behm to J'fid Homowlmfc like n fellow after talniitf too much gro#, and even to think that the vchhcl had some instinct or perception of what bTio and myself were after. Will all my readers deny tho possibility of any perception in some of the complicated contrivances men have put together? I cleared the passage, and the shore, receding on either side, gave me plenty of sea-room. Another hour and Janson appeared on deck nearly himself again, though rather weak, he said. 13y daylight we had dropped our anchor oft' the town. ,