Auckland Jottings.

Woodville Examiner, Volume XXII, Issue 3682, 2 April 1904, Page 2

Auckland Jottings.

(By jur Travelling Reporter). NGAAKUWAIIIA NATIVE REGATTA. The meeting with old friends at Hamilton produced a surprised greeting, and a very cordial welcome, provided mo with a pleasant and interested pilot to the beauties of tha place, and brought out the suggestion that as the Maori regatta was to be held at Ngaruawahia next day, it would be wise of me to stay for a clay and run back and see it, as it might easily be the fight cf a lifetime. And it seemed such a reasonable suggestion that it was readily responded to, inasmuch as I was oat for sight-seeing.

So next day I went back on my tracks towards Auckland as far as the junction of the riven. Excursion fares were advertised, and excursion crowds filled the trains. Everyone will know what th it means. But the fares were secondclass only, the station having up a notice that no first-class tickets would be issued. I don’t know why. And the fares had a shilling added to them, the stationmaster explaining that this was for admission to the regatta grounds. It appeared afterwards that this was paltry, to put it mildly. For there are no grounds to which admission can be charged, the river hank being an open ieserve, and free io all. Those who drove to the affair had no charge to pay at all. However, it was only a shilling subscription lo the regatta funds after all, and no one who went to the regatta could complain at that, while every one must know that affairs of (he sort cannot be run without funds. So it is to be presumed that the regatta committee had found it possible and advisable to arrange/ with the railway authorities to collect the shilling and pay it over, while it would pay the railway department t.o do so and keep the regatta going so as to maintain the traffic.

Nga'uiwahia ia not a largo pine-. A couple of puos, two or three stores, three churches, a brewery, a flaxmill, a smithy, stations, police and railway, and twenty or thirty .dwellings make up the roll. Formerly u used to do a river shipping trade, steamers towing barges iaden with coal, firewood and stores up to it, but ths ml way has killed that. But it was crowded when our train got there, and was still more crowded when the Auckland and Thames specials got in. 1 think I said before it was at the junction of the Waikato and Waipa rivers, which form a Y here. Following the crowd we found we were on the bank of the two rivers in between them. A fine wide space was open as a road way, and was well shaded with trees, making it an ideal picnic place. The committee had men with boilers at different places, so that picnic parties were able to get their teapots filled and enjoy themselves and have their lunch comfortably before the sports of the day began. All along under the trees the picnic parties were ranged, and beyond them in the open there were all the usual shows. Publicans’ terns, refreshment tents, Aunt Bally, conjurors, merry-go-round—ail the side shows usuafy aeon at our and other agricultural shows where there in full swing, and some folks were so entranced with them that they never saw the races. The Maoris were in full evidence, the men much as usual, and women and girls mostly clad in Lire brightest colors they could get. /Those who were not were in jackets that even to masculine eyes were singularly shapeless. It was a bright fine day, and from the far away Thames, 77 miles eff, from Cambridge, at tbe end of a spur line branching off near Hamilton, and 30 miles distant, and from Auckland, 71 miles away, the crowd came, Hamilton was almost empty that day, but the return train that passed Hamilton for Cambridge was by no means empty at Hamilton in the evening. Both Auckland and the Thames are great boating places, so that it was not surprising that boats and crews should come from each place, or that crowds should accompany them. In any case they did so, for it was estimated that there were 8000 people there. I would hardly like to guarantee that, estimate, for it is very easy to overestimate a crowd, and I would hardly like to put the crowd at that, but the 20 chains of river bank along which it was stretched was crowded, showing that the affair was one of the great gala days of the who ! e country side.

The regatta itself began about a quarter past twelve with a parade of the different canoes engaged. There were canoes with single girls, canoes with women, canoes specially intended for hurdle leaping, and small, large, and larger canoes with men. In the regatta there were races for four-oared out-rigger boats with Pakeha crews, and also one lor ladies pairs, but these were not in the parade. After the parade-the races came on. The Maori events were four-hurdle races, two war canoe ones, one for girls and one for women. Besides these there was a mounted swimming race, and a chase for a bride.

The most interesting cvenls were iha hurdle races. The hurdles con-.-isted of two stakes driven into the. boitom of the river, fairly close to ihe bank, with a a - -?. 1) about a foot above the water ievei. They were three in number, an I the third was rather stiller than the others. The canoes for these races were light ones, and had a crow of two, men, women, or girls, tss the case might bo. They wore built with a Jong slope to the fore end, and -the paddles set well aft to as to bring the bow well out of the water. In the race the object was to get good way on so as to send the canoe well up or. tiro hurdle, and when this was done the forward paddlcr, bow oar us ajPakobn would bo called, sprang to the bow so as to turn tho balance of the ciuioe and cans;- it to slide across the hurdle. Most c f-hci.j d;d this very cleverly, but one crow of two women caused great amusement

by (heir repeated failures, and won the frank admiration of the crowd by their steadfast piuck. They came on gallantly to the first furdle, and seemed almost to get ovi r, but hung at the critical moment, and then slowly slid back. Again and again they tried it only to meet with failure, but at last they got across the first hurdle to meet with the same experience at the others, but sticking to, the job till at last they got across. Of course, they were completely out of the race, but their pluck in sticking to their task was well worthy of a cheer it brought them. The secret of their failure was that the heavier of the two women was in (he stern, end when the lighter one sprang forward to the bow 1 she was not heavy enough to overcome the leverage of the old lady alt, and so the canoe did not get across the hurdle. In one of their efforts one of the women fell overboard and had to swim to the bank, but got on board again determined to sho w that she and her male would do it. The last of the hurdle races was one in which a canoe had to go over the hurdle and the men under it.. It was very ixcitiug to see the men drive the canoe on to the hurdle, jump over like a flash, swim under lire hurdle, catch hold of the canoe and pall it across before it- had the chance of sliding back, and the'u jump into it and paddle away for the next one. By toe way, when a cmoc did cross a hurdle it looked as if it was going straight to the bottom, or at least-as if it would ship too much water to he able to float. But none of them were sunk though the crews had to bale vigorously. It was curious to see them drive the water out of the canoes with their paddles, which seemed to do the work very efficiently. The big canon races were rather tune-a? the larger part of them was down the stem of the Y where they were out of fright, and ■ besides the largest one, which hold the biggest crow, seemed to be safe for a win each time. Whether 'it had to make an allowance to the others did not appear, tut 28 men agairmt 16 were too great odds to he balanced by a lighter ■ c inoe. Perhaps that was why there was nut ro much excitement am s: g-t the Maoris. It was

,-cid that ih ,-y ail belonged to one mbs, a-d lO there- was no tribal glory ta be contend,d for, while the prize money would be pooled, but that was contradicted, as the different canoes came from Rotorua, Waikato, and somewhere else. One Maori stood in the centre of each canoe and skippered it, giving the time and urging the men on. But it was said that neither of the skippers, nor the crews, nor the Maoris on the banks, were so excited at the end of a race as they ordinarily would be at tbe beginning of it. Btill it was a hue exhibition of paddiing, and to look at a canoe as it came up the river and to watch tbe paddles going was as if you saw the hack of one man flapping his arms up and down his sides with £hsT~ regularity of deck work.

[to be continued]