Nation Making

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VI, Issue 37, 13 September 1890, Page 2

Nation Making

A STORY OF

NEW ZEALAND SAY AGEISM & CIVILIZATION

By

J. C. FIRTH,

AUTHOR of “LUCK” and “OUR KIN ACROSS THE SEA

Chapter XXIII. ON THE RIVER. River Thames Canoe navigation - Maori pluck- A Maori waternymph Maori sports—The chief’s chivalry—Exciting songs— Road making over mountains-Removal of rapids and snags in river. | 11 k Vaihou. or Thames river, when I ‘ knew it, was only navigable for thirty miles from its mouth. Beyond nr III W 1 ,0 * ,,fc innumerable rocky bars, \ xVVP’SfeJ/ 11 rapids, sandbanks, and snags (sunken •ijA I’j trees) rendered navigation for any rd craft but a Maori canoe impossible. Even canoes were often swamped in L—- - ._2_J the rapids or upset on the snags. For years after I purchased the Matamata estates, stores ami machinery (taken apart) were sent up the river in canoes. Very often the canoes were weeks going up the river, and not infrequently coining to grief on the voyage. On one occasion, which I may mention, because it brings out one of the traits of Maori character, I had sent up three canoes, in one of which, amongst other things, was a (Toskill’s roller, ploughs, and a hag of salt. The roller, as usual with heavy articles, had been taken apart. Two of the canoes arrived at the landing on my estate, the third having run on a snag, had deposited the iron roller and the rest of her cargo at the bottom of the river. A week later, the third canoe arrived with every article aboard except the salt. The Maoris said the canoe had stuck on a snag and upset in deep water, but the hardy, patient fellows had dived for the cargo and secured every article except the salt : of that, the empty sack only remained. This they held up with great glee, saying that the water had drowned the salt. Phe Waihoa is a dangerous river, owing to the quicksands with which it abounds. < )ne of my adventures on the river came near a tragic ending. I had taken up some friends in the Caroline, a small schooner, to Te Puke, the then head of the navigation. Whilst her cargo was being transferred to the canoes, we stripped for a swim. Owing to an undercurrent, caused probably by some peculiar tidal action at this print by the sudden shifting of a quicksand. 1 was carried under, and, unable to extricate myself, should have inevitably been drowned, had not two Maoris, one squatted on the bank, and the other on the Caroline, seeing my position, simultaneously dived and rescued me. I never forgot the true service those good fellows rendered me. When the goojls had been transferred to the canoes we proceeded up the river. For three days we paddled over sandbanks, snags, ami rapids. The tedium of the voyage was enlivened by the chants and old canoe songs of the Maoris. At every rapid the canoes were unloaded, the cargoes carried on shore, and the canoes hauled over the rapids. In some of the reaches, where the curient was swift, my Maoris ceased paddling, ami ‘ poled’ the canoes until we came into smooth water. At one rapid, ‘ Te-au-o-tonga,’ the river was filled with roc s except on the left bank, where there was a narrow channel of deep water. One of the canoes had a crew of three Maori girls, one of whom ,vas deaf and dumb. This girl was busily poling, when her pole slipped off the edge of a rock. In a moment she went down head foremost into deep water. This caused the greatest merriment amongst the rest of the Mam is. 'Phe next instant the girl came up like a water-nymph, and clambering into the canoe resumed her pole as if nothing hail happened. In due time we arrived at the head of the navigation. The chief, William Thompson (the King-maker), with a large number of the Ngatihaua tribe were waiting to receive me. That afternoon we pitched our tents and made ourselves comfortable. Next day we had horse and foot races, of both of which the Maoris are very fond. Amongst other sports we had swimming ami diving matches. At the point where we were encamped there was a very strong rapid. Just below, about forty young Maoris were squatting on the bank ready for a diving contest. At a given signal these amphibious fellows dashed into the river, ami commenced ‘ treading water,’ waiting for a bottle filled with sand to be thrown in. When they were all in position, the loaded bottle was thiown into midstream. The instant it touched the water every Maori disappeared. Not a head was to be seen. Presently forty Maori heads came to the surface, most of them far below where we stood, carried down stream by the force of the current. < hie young Maori secured the bottle, and swimming ashore with it received the five shillings prize. I ought to have said that the deaf and dumb Maori girl wished to be one of the divers, to which I did not consent. She walked up the bank ami covering her head with her blanket, sat alone in evident trouble. Some of the Maoris telling me that the chief William Thompson, who was squatting on the opposite bank, was a great diver, 1 said I would again throw in the bottle if he would dive for it. Thompson asked what the prize was. • Five shillings,’ I replied. ‘ Make it a pound,’ said he, ‘ and I will try for it.*

1 consented, and he at once swam across the river. All the principal chiefs immediately said they would dive for the bottle. In a minute about sixty Maoris wen* treading water in midstream. It was an exciting scene. Directly

the l>ottle touched the water every head disappeared. As before many divers were carried clown stream. This time it was not a young Maori who secured the bottle, but no other than Thompson, the great chief, the King-maker. Swimming ashore he gave me the bottle and I handed the sovereign to him. ‘ No,’ said he, * I dived for the hottie, not for the money,’ and like a true chief as he was he added : ‘ Throw in the bottle again, and let the deaf and dumb girl try for it, and let her prize be the pound.’ I readily consented, for I was touched by his chivalry. Again a great number clashed into the river, joined this time by the disconsolate girl. As before, when the bottle was thrown every head disappeared. Singularly enough the Maori girl secured the bottle to the great delight of the whole company. I made many voyages in canoes upon this beautiful river. I p stream, canoe travelling is sufficiently tedious and tiresome, but down stream it is very different. Indeed I know of no mode of travelling more delightful than paddling in a canoe down such a river as the Waihou, with its quiet reaches, shady banks, and water clear as crystal, with a crew of half a dozen stalwart, merry Maoris gaily singing canoe songs to the music of their paddles. Gliding along a placid reach, or sweeping rapidly round a lovely wooded point,—now racing another canoe,’ amid exciting songs, joyous shouts, and peals of laughter,—now shooting a rapid, steady, silent, and watchful, —then once more merrily paddling in smooth water, —it is simply perfect enjoyment. One day, while I was at Matamata, a Maori messenger arrived with the intelligence that live canoes laden with my grass and clover seed had been stopped by Tanua, the son of my friend the chief Tamehana (Thompson), who had died about two months before. The messenger brought me a letter from Tanua to the effect that he intended to break all his father’s agreements with me ; that he ami all the Ngatihaua tribe refused to acknowledge the Queen’s government, and had determined to return their allegiance to Tawhiao, the Maori King : that he had turned back my canoes, and that he warned me to remove at once my sei vants, my sheep, my cattle, ami all my. goods to avoid trouble. T knew well what his ‘warning ’ meant. At that time there was only a horse track from Cambridge, the frontier town to Matamata. I recognised the serious aspect of affairs, and I lost no time in useless negotiations with the rebel chief. I instructed the messenger to take the canoes down the river, and deliver their cargoes to my agent at Te Puke. By this action of Tanua’s I hail lost the season for sowing grass seed. \\ ithout any vain regrets I began next morning to lay oft a dray road across the mountains lying between Matamata and Cambridge. All the men except stockmen on the station were moved the same day to the foot of the hills with horses, ploughs, picks, and shovels. Before night tents were pitched, and everything made ready for a start on roadmaking next day. I nder the able direction of Mr Williams, my manager, sidings were ploughed, cuttings made, and swamps bridged for a length of seven miles where the road descended to the M aikato plains. During the progress of the work Williams was often threatened ami warned, but with steady courage he and the men persevered. In six weeks a good dray road was finished, which, being the only road into the interior, served for the subsequent movement of troops, and nation-making advanced a step. The completion of this road enabled me to dispense with the rive’ transit, and to hold the country. I had lost a year, it is true, but amongst the difficulties and dangers of those troubled times I counted that a very small matter. The danger from hostile Maoris in making this mountain road, and the great difficulty of transporting across it the multifarious articles required for the establishment ami cultivation of a great estate, were such as none but the pioneers of those early times had to contend against, later settlers happily knowing nothing of them in these days, of peace, roads and railways. After the lapse of several years of toilsome work over the mountain road, I saw that to cultivate the Matamata estate with fair chances of success I must clear the Thames river of snags, sand banks, sunken trees, and rapids. All my friends who knew the river said it could not be done ; that the snags were simply innumerable ; that the removal of one rocky bar would only reveal the existence of another ; that from the then head of the navigation there were seventy miles of river which nothing but a Maori canoe would ever navigate; that it was a work in any case utterly beyond the power of any one man to accomplish, if it could be done at all.

I was in a minoiity of one, which was indeed no new thinsr, but I felt I could do the work, and I determined to make the attempt. The conception of the idea was one thing, the successful carrying it out was another and harder thing. Besides the natural difficulties of the work, I knew I had to face the opposition of the Maoris. My old opponent, Tanua, had fortunately left the Thames valley, ami taken up his residence in the King Country, but at that time the river ran through a purely Maori district, and though the Maoris were not unfriendly to me personally, I knew they were very jealous of any meddling with the' river, as clearing it would open the country to white settlers. As a first step I interviewed two or three of the most powerful chiefs, and aftei some difficulty obtained their tacit consent to commence work. My next step was to secure a suitable man to take charge of the operations. This was a task of no little difficulty, for in a country like New Zealand riverine engineeis were not then plentiful, especially with the indispensable knowledge of the Maori language and Maori ways. In such selections the main point is to have a dear idea ot what you want to do, and then to keep your eyes open for the man. In this case, as in many other important works I have taken in hand and carried out, I found the man I wanted. In this instance he was a young ‘ colonial,' a sailor, a born engineer, and a pakelia Maori that is, a European with a Maori training. Captain Tizard, whom I had known as a boy, was the man I selected. The work began about thirty miles from the mouth of the river. Tizard commenced operations with a whaleboat and a Maori erew. By means of gunpowder, cross cut saws, and tackle of various sorts, he made good headway for about a year. At the end of that time a colonist was killed by the King natives in a neighbouring district. The wildest excitement followed. Troops of armed and angry Maoris passed up and down the river.

One by one the snagging hands deserted, and I was compelled to discontinue the work. In about twelve months the excitement subsided, and I recommenced operations. By this time dynamite had liecome known, anti I set to work with better equipments. I built a small steamer of very light draft (engined by my eldest son), and a strong punt of shallow draft. This was fitted with windlass, derrick-clutches, and tackle of various kinds. Ihe barge was decked over, with a house on deck tor the crew. , 1 aking aboard the necessary stores and a ton of dynamite, Captain Tizard resumed operations at the point he had left the previous year. The work was hard and difficult.. Tizard and his Maori crew were regular water dogs, and it was well they were. The first summer they spent much of their time in the water depositing the dynamite below the water-logged snags. Subsequently we found this was unnecessary, expei ience showing that it was sufficient to place the dynamite upon the snags or rocks whenever the water covered the charge a few inches. orking his way slowly up stream, by the end of summer lizard had cleared a narrow channel of sufficient breadth to enable him to get up to the cataract of Pako Pako (now named Stanley, after the African explorer), the northern boundary of my Matamata estate. Arrived at this point, operations ceased for the winter, the river being too cold for continuing the work. Next summer we began at Stanley, and worked down stream, clearing a channel forty feet wide. Hundreds of snags were blown up, many of them of very large size. One of these lay right across the liver (except a passage of about eight feet) with a few inches of water running over it. The sand had banked up behind it, and from time immemorial it had been used foi a crossing place. This snag, which was a tree about five feet in diameter, had created a fall across the river with a depth of water about eight inches in front of it, and eight feet below it. After a good many charges of dynamite had been exploded the snag was finally removed, and the sand being carried down by the current, gave an even depth of about five feet above and below. The removal of the numerous rocky bars forming the falls and rapids was a difficult undertaking, requiring a great expenditure of dynamite. One of these, ‘ Te-au-o-tonga,’ was as Tizard called it, ‘ a terror.’ After a careful survey we decided on a plan of operations. I went up to see the last of Te-au-o-tonga, the worst impediment to navigation on the river. That night I slept on board the punt, accompanied by one of iny sons and an artist friend. AV e had half a ton of dynamite on board, upon which we lay in our blankets, and slept soundly enough until we were awoke by aloud peal of thunder. V ivid Hashes of lightning, followed by instantaneous thunder peals, warned us that danger was not very far off. Had the lightning struck the mast, there might* possibly have been a terrific explosion heard in the quiet valley, but nothing more would have been heard of us. Amidst a torrent of rain Tizard climbed up the mast with a length of fencing wire, which by the lightning Hashes he was enabled to twist round the mast with the end projecting a few inches above ; then, throwing the coil of wire over the side of the punt into the water, he had provided a lightning conductor. After this daring exploit he came below, and all hands went to sleep once more. Next day was occupied in making long lines of narrow calico bags, in which several hundred pounds of dynamite cartridges were placed, and carefully laid in position on the submerged rocks. Just before sunset all the preparations were completed. The steamer Tui and the punt were moored under the lee of a high bank, and Tizard, with a Maori boy, went off in the dingy to light the fuse. 1 hat done, they lost no time in giving the dynamite a wide birth. I stood on the river bank to see what would happen. After a few very quiet moments of suspense the dynamite exploded. Never did I hear such a teirilic roar, or behold so grand, so sublime a spectacle. With a wondrous majesty the whole breadth of the river seemed to mount upwards, diminishing in breadth as it rose, and then, for an instant, there was projected against the background of the pur]de mountains a column of translucent water adorned with a hum I red radiant pinnacles, rising higher and higher and terminating in a final pinnacle five hundred feet above the river. Illumined by the setting sun, a thousand tiny rainbows dazzled us for one instant, and then the gorgeous spectacle dissolved and slowly fell back, a shapless mass of water into the river—- ‘ An unsubstantial pageant faded.’ (TO BE CONTINUED.)