ENGLISH AND COLONIAL HOSPITALITY.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XL, Issue 4, 25 January 1908, Page 26

ENGLISH AND COLONIAL HOSPITALITY.

< VISIT to an English country house is supposed to be very enjoyable, J ■ but I doubt if the average Eng- / > lish squire, who asks you down • ■ to his place for the regulation ten days, is always quite as glad to see his guests as he pretends to be. There is a certain formality’ and stiffness in the best regulated houses, and a monotonous round of carefully planned entertainments for the guests. The length of your stay is accurately specified in the invitation, and you know beforehand exactly what will happen when you get there. Your man will look up the trains for you, and pack your trunks with an immense amount of more or less useless gear, and send a telegram to say what train you are coming by. He will deposit you and part of your luggage in a first smoker, and tell you that the rest is labelled and in the van. and then, if you do not take him with you. he will depart to have a good time on his own while you are away, and you feel rather envious of his unchartered freedom. The porter also comes up to assure you that your luggage is quite safe, and the guard comes up and further reassures you on the point, and tells you to change somewhere or other you never heard of. And when eventually you ar-, rive at your destination more servants and more porters come to your aid, and you are driven up to the house in a dogcart by one of the grooms.. If you arrive in the afternoon, as one generally does m the shires, you are carried off for tea in the drawing-room, and you are questioned about your journey, and you will be asked if you remembered to change at the junction, and told where you would have got to if you hadn't changed, and you will listen to the story of what happened to Jones, who went to sleep in the train and got carried on to Edinburgh or Aberdeen, and you begin to envy the aforesaid Jones, and wonder if he had a more exciting time than you are having. And you know exactly what is going to happen to-morrow and the next day, and the day after that. You will be taken round the stables by your host, and round the greenhouses by your hostess, and she will tell you that she can’t pick any Howers because she is afraid of the gardener, and your host will tell you in confidence that he stands a little bit in awe of his butler The English country gentry are perpetually trying to live up to the high standard expected of them by their servants. At the end of your ten days you have an uncomfortable feeling that your hosts are rather glad to see their guests depart, but they do their best to conceal it, and you say you have enjoyed yourself immensely, and depart with a feeling of thankfulness that at any rate that’s over. For true hospitality you want to strike a New Zealand settler’s place unexpectedly. You find him pottering about his paddocks with some farm implement in his hand. When you ride up to his gate he at once comes forward to open it. and asks if you are coming in. Whatever the hour of the day he calls out to his good lady to put the kettle on. and a substantial tea is provided for yop. They are really glad to see you. though they haven't the faintest idea who you are, or where you come from. 1 remember many such instances of spontaneous, open-handed hospitality’, and remember them with gratitude. They take your horse and give it a feed ami turn it out in their best paddock, and you are taken in and introduced to the various members of the family with the remark. “I didn't quite catch your name, mister.They’ offer to put you up for the night, and will not hear of a refusal, though often even one extra means a lot of reari'ungement of domestic affairs. One of. the. children is furtively despatched with much whimpering to the store to get a supply of tinned food, and she generally returns in a

few minutes and inquires, “What did you tell me to get, mother?” You are then taken round the place, and you see the family pig, and the cows and dogs and poultry, and the vegetable patch and the flower garden, which your host carefully explains to you has been started to give the missus something to look after. You gather, incidentally, that she also milks the cows and feeds the calves, and tends the pigs, and manages the poultry, and does the washing and scrubbing and cooking. The man tells y r ou he doesn’t go much on> flowers himself, he has too much to do on the place in other ways : but that women want something to occupy their time. You find next day that they won’t hear of your going on; they say you haven’t half seen the place, and so you stay, and they get up a picnic for you, and you go and inspect the school and the store, and any other public buildings there may be, and you are taken to call on other settlers; and when you finally depart they all hope you will eome back again, and you feel your heart warmed towards them, and you are really and genuinely sorry to leave them. Dear country friends, if these lines ever catch your eye, will you allow’ one, who has so often experienced your kindness and hospitality, to thank you all from the bottom of his heart? In a world, where much has gone awry, where the lyre has only too often struck a jarring note, when in fast falling autumn days I muse and meditate on the past, my best and happiest memories are not of court functions or baronial country seats, but of the happy days I have spent'in far away bush homes; of smiling, rosy cheeks of health and happiness, of the hearty hand-grip that hade me welcome, and the genuine regret with which we said good-bye.