Jenkins, Sailor and Steep lech haser. A CHAT WITH OLD-TIMER.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume 1, Issue 1, 1 October 1899, Page 17

Jenkins, Sailor and Steep lech haser. A CHAT WITH OLD-TIMER.

Photographs h/ Mrs. Costello, Otaki

WIDE New Zealand plain threaded emkJ w^ n pleasant country roads and _j^OJ^ softly-flowing streams, and dotted with cozy homesteads, garden encircled, a place of peace and rest after the toil and moil of the city — such is Otaki. The purple Tararuas, grandly mysterious, bar the eastern horizon, and beyond the line of golden tussocked sand-hills moans the invisible sea. There lies Kapiti, beautiful Kapiti— dreamiest and loveliest of Islands, with the most tragic memories clustered about its shores and cliffs. The very soil of Kapiti is blood-stained ; its precipices could, had they tongues, cry aloud of slaughter. It seems passing strange that the Island which, in by-gone days, was a shambles and a charnel-house, should now be reserved as a haven of quietness and safety, where wild birds may dwell and increase unharmed. For this is the use to which the Government of New Zealand purpose to put Kapiti. And in its latter days it shall have peace. Still on the Island can be seen the ruined strong-hold of Te Rauparaha, the Napoleon of Maori war-fare. From it, daily, the fierce chief's eagle eye swept the lovely plain of Otaki for fresh enemies to conquer. Woe betide the poor wretches whose fire smoke was descried above the manuka and flax ! The great war canoes would be launched and filled with warriors, eager to hunt down the fugitives. And then the quiet air, where now only pleasant country sounds are heard, would be rent by the wails of women, the groans of dying men, the cries of little

children, and the shouts of the victors. In the sunset the conquerors would paddle across to Kapiti, that lay mystically purple against the flushed horizon. There, for hours, the great ovens had been heating, and now were ready to be gorged witli the fresh meat that had been secured. Up in the dark mountain gorges would be crouching, perhaps, a few shivering men, who, not daring to light a tell-tale fire, watched from their eyrie the smoke from Kapiti against the sunset sky, the smoke of the fires that were preparing the bodies of their relatives and friends for the cannibal feast. There are not many links existing now between those old savage times and those pleasant latter days of peace and prosperity. It was in search of one of these links )we went one autumn day. His name was Jenkins, " Old Jenkins," to distinguish him from his many olive branches. He was; to Otaki what, a museum would be to a larger town, and any visitor might be told, as we were, to "go and call on old Jenkins ! Bless you ! you don't need no introduction. And be sure and ask him to tell you all about hie fight with Eauparaha, or Bobuller, as the whalers used to call him." He lived in a gray-shingled cottage, that cowered down amid its encircling foliage. The creepers clambered up to the very chimneys, and lay in long trails upon the mossy roof Across the dunes, beyond the tangle of roses and geraniums in the little garden patch, the never-silent sea was moaning, and Kapiti roße clear against the pale sky.

We knock at the low door in the little , jpdrch somewhat timidly, for we are but town )folk trammelled by conventionalities, and are not at all sure how the old whaler may receive us. We are quite unprepared for the hearty greeting as the door opens. " Gome in, my gells," he cries, holding out a ' wrinkled hand. For all he knows, we may be burglars or book agents. But, perhaps, in the monotony of his old age, even the advent of a burglar or a book agent may be an agreeable diversion.

Our host is little and thin, with a lean, clean-shaven face, where still a trace of. the JCentish. cherry lingers . For he is a Kentish man, and now, in his eighty -fifth year, is a gr,and. advertisement for that county. His eye is blue, and still shrewd and keen, and Jiis mouth, which has in it but three derelicts of teeth, possesses a humorous twist that promises well for our entertainment. It is tlie very strangest of interiors, this quaint little room with its smoke-stained ceiling, from which. hant» v by two unneces-

sarily stout chains, a large cabin lamp and a highly ornate fly-catcher. There is a distinctly nautical flavour about the room, and, given sufficient imagination, one could almost think oneself on board a ship. But not on one of the floating palaces of to-day. Eather the queer furnishings belong to the good old times of lengthy voyages, mutinies, tarry pig-tails, and salt junk. That clumsy, solid mahogany locker conveys adistinct suggestion of rum — and pirates. What strange fierce faces have been reflected in that old brass-

framed oblong mirror abdye the shining ship's stove ? We are sitting, on cabin seats with carved mahogany arms and cushions of faded crimson velvet.- All these are odds and ends of wrecked vessels that met their doom on the Otaki coast years ago. "When the ships were dismantled— and many ribs and fragments of vessels are still strewn about the beach there — old Jenkins had procured his furniture. If we pass down the curving white road that ends at the beach, we can.see the mast

of the "City of Auckland," an emigrant ship— uplifted from the ever encroaching sand. Sea birds have built their nests on the tangle of cordage near its summit, and, not long ago, a gale blew away the sand and disclosed the ribs of the vessel. Old Jenkins has vivid memories of this wreck, from which he saved many people. "Yes, my gells," he tells us, "I was twelve hours in the water a' savin' them folk. I rows off to the ship, climbs on board, and puts my 'cad into the cabin. An' there ms the women all a' shriekin' an' a' dripping an' there ain't no worse sight, to my mini, than wet females ! " Jenkins received the Royal Humane Society's medal for this. Bat he professes to treat this honour lightly, and speaks of this trophy as " three penn'orth o' copper." The table and locker are strewn' — though strewn is hardly the term for the careful, ship-shape mode of the arrangement — with woolly mats, shells, coral veiled in red muslin, and old books — the odds and ends of a long life-time. Photographs, many dimmed and brown with age, and some highly-coloured prints, hang on the walls. Through the open door we get a glimpse of the kitchen with its wide snow-white table and its broad hearth. There, too, is still another bit of flotsam and jetsam in the shape of two brass hand-rails, now utilized for airing clothes upon. Jenkins himself is garrulous, and quite ready to rake over his memory-stores to satisfy our curiosity " Yes, my gells," he says, as we ask him eager questions, " tlmt came from a boat wot was wrecked along the shore. The cap'n was drownded, but to saved 'is wife, we did. 'Ad no end o' trouble a' doin' it, too, for the boat capsized four times. Wen we got the woman ashore, she ses to me, ' Mr. Jenkins,' see she, ' never will I forget yer. If Igo to the end o' the world, I'll keep my eye on yer,' she ees. ' I'll write yer every mail.' But she didn't, thank God ! ' ' old Jenkins adds, with a fervent sigh of relief. His views on the subject of the eternal She are hinged with pessimism. It may be that a man who has had sixteen

daughters to bring vp — from teething to trousseaux —is apt to get this way. In his youth he has been somewhat of a Lothario, and he chuckles merrily, as he recalls a reminiscence of his salad days. " I was in Sydney," he says, " an' I 'ad in my chest a grand Maori mat, white as milk, it were, and with fringe as long as from 'ere to the wall. Old Eobuller gey' it me. Well, a young gell — pretty she were, too — catched sight o' this, and begged 'ard for it. I ses to 'or, ' I'll giv' it yer, my lass, for a kiss.' The gell ses, ' My ! Mr. Jenkins, I'll kiss yor all day for it ! ' But I ses, ' No, thank yer, my lass, one's enough ! ' Tor see I 'ad a bit o' a sweet'art not far off," and a knowing wink of his blue eyes concluded the tale. At this point it is our manifest duty to inquire after his good wife, who, if the spotless appearance of our surroundings is to be trusted, is a very Martha. The old man evidently ascribes our inquiry to our fear that we may be discovered by his wife paying attention to her lord and master. With a chuckle, and a poke at us with a skinny finger, he remarks reassuringly, " She's 'ard o' 'earin', the old woman is, thank the Lord!" Old Jenkins is a curious * combination of jockey and sailor, and defies the idea that there is no affinity between a mariner and a, horse. For many years he was senior jockey of New Zealand, and won more races, he says, than he ever got paid for. We were told afterwards he donned " the silk " when he was seventy years old. He bares his bald head and points with grim satisfaction to an indentation that crosses its shining surface. " Got my skull crushed in by a 'orse, an' then I stopped a raein'. Just feel it, my gells ! " But neither of us felt our short acquaintance with Mr. Jenkins warranted such familiarity* At last we stemmed the torrent of reminiscence, and asked the burning question^ " You fought Te Kuaparaha, didn't you, Mr, Jenkins ? " It was like the application of a match to a powder magazine ! The old eyo flashed, the right hand clenched, and one wrinkled finger poked us in the enthiißiaein of an awakened glorious memory, " Ay» AJi

my gells, Bill Jenkins is the only man wot ever thrashed old Robuller. I'm little, I am, but all of me's plucky, and Robuller 'c were a born coward. Me and him 'ad words over some rum I sold to 'is wife— leastways, one of 'is wives ; as big as that she were," — opening his arms wide. " She giv' me a pig for the rum, a good pig it were, too, an' then she went ashore to drink with the bosun an' the carpenter. Eobuller come aboard an' wanted 'is wife. ' Gone ashore, she 'as,' said I, a 'oldin' the pig. Then 'c wanted the pig back, an' I ses to 'im, ' Come on, old cock, dyer want to fight?' An' with that I shaped up to 'im an' gives 'im one on 'is nose,"— the old sailor almost gave us one on ours in his growing excitement—" An' I ses, ( There's one for yer nob ! ' 'E goes down, my gells, like a log, an' 'oilers awful." Trembling and panting, the veteran came to an end, while we expressed .our admiration of his feat, and our regret that he had not wiped out " Robuller " from the face of' the earth. The world Avould have been rid of a ferocious conqueror, who did not scruple, in order to further his own schemes, to command a mother to smother her baby, nor to throw his slaves overboard to lighten his canoe. But well we know that the historic duel — Jenkins v. Robuller — must be accepted with discretion, for the mists of age are apt to magnify past achievements. The mention of Kapiti awakens fresh reminiscences, lie tells us of the good old days when whales were plenty and whalers many and prosperous ; when six hundred men were busy at the trying-out pots on Kapiti, the remains of which are still to be seen. He pictures to us the thrill when first the whale is sighted, the stealthy approach of the boats, the poised lance, the whizz of its deft throw, the quiver as it settles in the huge body. In his excitement, he addresses' the whale as " old gell." Verily these were perilously delightful times. Kapiti to us is fraught with fascination, we have been told 1 of stores of greenstone buried there by Teßauparalia half a century ago; of great caves where are stored the bones of long-dead chief 8, of wondrous shells

found nowhere else than on its shores. There, in some ohscure recess, lies Te Eauparaha himself. The old chief, pagan and cannibal to the last, died in a little toliare or hut at Otaki, and there was buried. But his bones were carried secretly by night to Kapiti, for fear they should be desecrated by his enemies There, maybe, his fierce old ghost, feathered and matted, mere in hand,

still watches from his ruined fortress the quiet plain of Otaki, and moans over the passing of the good old times of war-fare and cannibalism. | ! It was' on Kapiti that JenMns saw the most horrible sight in his "born days." A winsome Maori lass, a. captive, torn from her Southern home, was dragged out shrieking' before the great chief, and clubbed. The oven was ready, the body was prepared, and the grim ogre Te Eauparaha feasted royally, in presence of the old whaler, one white man

among many savages. "I'd take yer," lie says suddenly, " an' show yer the caves an' the old whalin' station an' all. But yell be sick. An' I can't abide sick females." It is impossible to contradict him, so we are obliged to stifle any wild plans, we had been cherishing, of traversing with this octogenarian the twelve miles of blue water between Kapiti and the mainl and. Sudd enly , turning from us, the old man strips what locks like a little table of .many and varied ornaments and a crotchet cover, and, opening the top with the air of a Maestro, asks, " Can either of you play the 'armonium ? " Of the intricacies of this special instrument we reluctantly confess our ignorance, but a knowledge of a treadle sewing machine enables o le of us to get something out of it distinctly resembling an air. " Bee-utiful, ain't it ? " cries old Jenkins, hanging enraptured over the side of the harmonium. " 'Ad that instrewinent twenty-five year come mid-winter. Buf'ims is wot I like " Here is another side to our old friend's character. As whaler, jockey, egotist, he has revealed himself to us, but he is also evidently somewhat of a musician. He earnestly declares he wants no " Dead March " played over his body. " Let me 'aye 'Should Auld Acquaintance be forgot,' " he entreats. "If yer don't 1 11 harnfc yer. D'ye know the toon ? " And then, in a voice of wondrous compass and melody, though

quavering a trifle by reason of his many years, he sings the first verso. The small, shrunk figure, standing among all his liforelics, and singing of " Auld Acquaintance," is a pathetic sight. There can be few or none left who have " paidelt i' the burn ' with old Jenkins. In his native Kentish village, he says, not one of his playmates is now living. Wo complimont him on his singing. He tells us that, years ago, ho was begged by a friend to sing " Poposodo to a Dying Christian," to soothe the last hours of the man's brother. "He died directly after, poor chap ! " says old Jenkins with unconscious hmr.our. " An 1 seemed to go oasiorlike for the song." I racked my brains to discuver what was meant by the first word in the title, when it suddenly was borne in upon me that it was an odo by Pope that sped, so to speak, the parting soul But much of the talk of the old man is not to be rendered into bald print. It wants the personality, the shrewd blue eye, the humorous toothless mouth, the nervous finger that literally poked you into attention, the little chuckle that rounded his phrases. We left him at his garden gate, and our last recollection of him is his little figure standing among his tangled flowers, while the golden sunset light streamed on his fractured bald pow. We left him gazing across at Kapiti, the scene of his historic triumph, and tho resting place of his ancient foe " Robuller."