CHAPTER XXIV. THE BAY OF ISLANDS AND NEW ZEALAND COAST
In a comparative new colony like New Zealand, where the marvellous growth of the young state can be traced within living memory, from the privations of the pioneer to the fully developed city with all the machinery of our latest luxurious civilization, it is exceedingly interesting to note how the principal towns have sprung up arbitrarily, and without any heed to the intentions of the ruling powers. The old-fashioned township of Kororarika, or Port Russell, is a case very much in point. As we sailed in between the many islets from which the magnificent bay takes its name, for all appearances to the contrary, we might have been the first, discoverers. Not a house, not a sail, not a boat, broke the loneliness and primeval look of the placid waters and the adjacent shores. Not until we drew near the anchorage, and saw upon opening up the little town the straight-standing masts of three whale-ships, did anything appear to dispel the intense air of solitude overhanging the whole. As we drew nearer, and rounded-to for mooring, I looked expectantly for some sign of enterprise on the part of the inhabitants - some tradesman's boat soliciting orders; some of the population on the beach (there was no sign of a pier), watching the visitor come to an anchor. Not a bit of it. The whole place seemed a maritime sleepy hollow, the dwellers in which had lost all interest in life, and had become far less energetic than the much-maligned Kanakas in their dreamy isles of summer.
Yet this was once intended for the capital of New Zealand. When the large and splendidly-built city of Dunedin, Otago, was a barren bush, haunted only by the "morepork" and the apteryx, Russell was humming with vitality, her harbour busy with fleets of ships, principally whalers, who found it the most convenient calling-place in the southern temperate zone. Terrible scenes were enacted about its "blackguard beach," orgies of wild debauchery and bloodshed indulged in by the half-savage and utterly lawless crews of the whaleships. But it never attained to any real importance. As a port of call for whalers, it enjoyed a certain kind of prosperity; but when the South Sea fishery dwindled, Russell shrank in immediate sympathy. It never had any vitality of its own, no manufactures or products, unless the wretched coalmines adjacent, with their dirty output, which is scoffed at by the grimiest tug afloat, could be dignified by the name.
Remembering, as I did, the beauty, the energy, and prosperity of the great New Zealand ports, some of them with not a tithe of the natural advantages of Russell, I felt amazed, almost indignant, at its dead-and-alive appearance.
Our anchor was no sooner down than the captains of the JAMES ARNOLD, MATILDA SAYER, and CORAL lowered and came on board, eager to hear or to tell such news as was going. As we had now grown to expect, all work was over immediately the sails were fast and decks cleared up, so that we were free to entertain our visitors. And a high old time we had of it that afternoon! What with songs, dances, and yarns, the hours flew by with lightning speed. Our Kanakas, too, were overjoyed to find compatriots among the visitors, and settled down to a steady stream of talk which lasted, without intermission, the whole night through. It was a wonderful exhibition of tongue-wagging, though what it was all about puzzled me greatly.
Life on board those three ships, though described in glowing terms by the visitors, was evidently not to be mentioned for comfort in the same breath as ours. But we found that our late captain's fame as a "hard citizen" was well known to all; so that it is only ordinary justice to suppose that such a life as he led us was exceptional for even a Yankee spouter. Our friends gave us a blood-curdling account of the Solander whaling ground, which we were about to visit, the JAMES ARNOLD and CORAL having spent a season there that cruise. I did not, however, pay much attention to their yarns, feeling sure that, even if they were fact, it would not help to brood over coming hardships, and inclined to give liberal discount to most of their statements. The incessant chatter, got wearisome at last, and I, for one, was not sorry when, at two in the morning, our visitors departed to their several ships, and left us to get what sleep still remained left to us.
A pleasant expedition was planned for the next day. Our visit being principally for wooding and watering, both of which it was necessary for us to do ourselves, Captain Count showed his usual promptitude in commencing at once. Permission having been obtained and, I suppose, paid for, we set out with two boats and a plentiful supply of axes for a well-wooded promontory to prepare a store of wood. Wood chopping is not usually looked upon as a sailor's pastime; but we had had considerable experience during the voyage, as a result of which most of us could swing an axe in fine style. But the Kanakas beat us all hollow. Delighted to get ashore again, pleased with the fine axes as children with new toys, they laid about them in grand style, the young trees falling right and left in scores. Anybody would have judged that we were working piece-work, at so much a cord, the pile grew so fast. There was such a quantity collected that, instead of lightering it off in the boats, which is very rough and dirty usage for them, I constructed a sort of raft with four large spars arranged in the form of an oblong, placing an immense quantity of the smaller stuff in between. Upright sticks were rudely lashed here and there, to keep the pile from bobbing out underneath, and thus loaded we proceeded slowly to the ship with sufficient wood for our wants brought in one journey. It was immediately hoisted on board, sawn into convenient lengths, and stowed away, the whole operation being completed, of getting between eight and ten tons of firewood cut, ferried, and stowed, in less than eight hours.
Next day was devoted to watering; but as I have elsewhere described that necessary if prosaic occupation, I will not repeat the story. Sufficient to say that the job was successfully "did" in the course of the day.
All the work being accomplished for which we had come, it only remained to give the crew "liberty." So the port watch, in their best (?) rig, were mustered aft; each man received ten shillings, and away they went in glee for the first genuine day's liberty since leaving Honolulu. For although they had been much ashore in Vau Vau, that was not looked upon in the same light as a day's freedom in a town where liquor might be procured, and the questionable privilege of getting drunk taken advantage of. Envious eyes watched their progress from the other ships, but, much to my secret satisfaction, none of their crews were allowed ashore at the same time. There were quite sufficient possibilities of a row among our own crowd, without farther complications such as would almost certainly have occurred had the strangers been let loose at the same time. Unfortunately, to the ordinary sailor-man, the place presented no other forms of amusement besides drinking, and I was grieved to see almost the whole crowd, including the Kanakas, emerge from the grog-shop plentifully supplied with bottles, and, seating themselves on the beach, commence their carouse. The natives evinced the greatest eagerness to get drunk, swallowing down the horrible "square gin" as if it were water. They passed with the utmost rapidity through all the stages of drunkenness. Before they had been ashore an hour, most of them were lying like logs, in the full blaze of the sun, on the beach. Seeing this, the captain suggested the advisability of bringing them on board at once, as they were only exposed to robbery by the few prowling Maories that loafed about the beach - a curious contrast to the stately fellows met with in other parts of New Zealand.
So we set to work, and brought them on board again, handing them over to their compatriots by way of warning against similar excesses, although, it must be confessed, that they were hardly to blame, with the example of their more civilized shipmates before their eyes. Sam was energetic in his condemnation of both the Kanakas for getting drunk, and the captain for giving them any money wherewith to do so. The remainder of the watch fortunately concluded their carouse without any serious disorder. A few bruises bestowed upon one another, more in clumsy horseplay than real fighting summed up the casualties among them. By ten o'clock that evening we had them all safely on board again, ready for sore heads and repentance in the morning.
During the day I had evolved a scheme, which I had great hopes of carrying out when our watch should be let loose on the morrow. When morning came, and the liberty men received their money, I called them together and unfolded my plan. Briefly, I proposed a sort of picnic at a beautiful spot discovered during our wooding expedition. I was surprised and very pleased at the eager way in which all, with the sole exceptions of Tui and his fellow- harpooner, a Portuguese, fell in with my suggestions. Without any solicitation on my part, my Kanakas brought me their money, begging me to expend it for them, as they did not know how, and did not want to buy gin.
Under such favourable auspices as these, we landed shortly after eight a.m., making a bee-line for the only provision shop the place boasted. Here we laid in a stock of such savouries as we had long been strangers to, both eatables and drinkables, although I vetoed fire-water altogether. Beer in bottle was substituted, at my suggestion, as being, if we must have drinks of that nature, much the least harmful to men in a hot country, besides, in the quantity that we were able to take, non- intoxicant. We also took tea, sugar, milk, and a kettle, Thus furnished, we struck for the country, merry as a group of schoolboys, making the quiet air ring again with song, shout, and laughter - all of which may seem puerile and trivial in the extreme; but having seen liberty men ashore in nearly every big port in the world, watched the helpless, dazed look with which they wander about, swinging hands, bent shoulders, and purposeless rolling gait, I have often fervently wished that some one would take a party of them for a ramble with a definite purpose, helping them to a little enjoyment, instead of them falling, from sheer lack of knowing what else to do, into some dirty, darksome gin-mill, to be besotted, befooled, and debased.
I do earnestly wish that some of the good folk in London and Liverpool, who are wringing their hands for want of something to do among their fellow-men, would pay a visit to sailor-town for the purpose of getting up a personally-conducted party of sailors to see the sights worth seeing. It is a cheap form of pleasure, even if they paid all expenses, though that would not be likely. They would have an uphill job at first, for the sailor has been so long accustomed to being preyed upon by the class he knows, and neglected by everybody else except the few good people who want to preach to him, that he would probably, in a sheepish shame-faced sort of way, refuse to have any "truck" with you, as he calls it. If the "sailors' home" people were worth their salt, they would organize expeditions by carriage to such beautiful places as - in London, for instance - Hampton Court, Zoological Gardens, Crystal Palace, Epping Forest, and the like, with competent guides and good catering arrangements. But no; the sailor is allowed to step outside the door of the "home" into the grimy, dismal streets with nothing open to him but the dance- house and brothel on one side, and the mission hall or reading- room on the other. God forbid that I should even appear to sneer at missions to seamen; nothing is farther from my intention; but I do feel that sailors need a little healthy human interest to be taken in providing some pleasure for them, and that there are unorthodox ways of "missioning" which are well worth a trial.
I once took a party (while I was an A.B.) from Wells-street Home to the South Kensington Museum. There were six of them - a Frenchman, a Dane, a Russian Finn, two Englishmen, and an Irishman. Though continually sailing from London for years, this was the first occasion they had ever been west of Aldgate. The only mistake I made was in going too deep at one step. The journey from Shadwell to South Kensington, under the guidance of one familiar, through the hardest personal experiences, with every corner of the vast network, was quite enough for one day. So that by the time we entered the Museum they were surfeited temporarily with sight-seeing, and not able to take in the wonders of the mighty place. Seeing this, I did not persist, but, after some rest and refreshment, led them across the road among the naval models. Ah! it was a rare treat to see them there. For if there is one thing more than another which interests a sailor, it is a well-made model of a ship. Sailors are model-makers almost by nature, turning out with the most meagre outfit of tools some wonderfully-finished replicas of the vessels is which they have sailed. And the collection of naval models at South Kensington is, I suppose, unsurpassed in the world for the number and finish of the miniature vessels there shown.
Our day was a great success, never to be forgotten by those poor fellows, whose only recreation previously had been to stroll listlessly up and down the gloomy, stone-flagged hall of the great barracks until sheer weariness drove them out into the turbid current of the "Highway," there to seek speedily some of the dirty haunts where the "runner" and the prostitute: awaited them.
But I have wandered far from the Bay of Islands while thus chattering of the difficulties that beset the path of rational enjoyment for the sailor ashore. Returning to that happy day, I remember vividly how, just after we got clear of the town, we were turning down a lane between hedgerows wonderfully like one of our own country roads, when something - I could not tell what - gripped my heart and sent a lump into my throat. Tears sprang unbidden to my eyes, and I trembled from head to foot with emotion. Whatever could it be? Bewildered for the moment, I looked around, and saw a hedge laden with white hawthorn blossom, the sweet English "may." Every Londoner knows how strongly that beautiful scent appeals to him, even when wafted from draggled branches borne slumwards by tramping urchins who have been far afield despoiling the trees of their lovely blossoms, careless of the damage they have been doing. But to me, who had not seen a bit for years, the flood of feeling undammed by that odorous breath, was overwhelming. I could hardly tear myself away from the spot, and, when at last I did, found myself continually turning to try and catch another whiff of one of the most beautiful scents in the world.
Presently we came to a cottage flooded from ground to roof-ridge with blossoms of scarlet geranium. There must have been thousands of them, all borne by one huge stem which was rooted by the door of the house. A little in front of it grew a fuchsia, twelve or fourteen feet high, with wide-spreading branches, likewise loaded with handsome blooms; while the ground beneath was carpeted with the flowers shaken from their places by the rude wind.
So, through scenes of loveliness that appealed even to the dusky Kanakas, we trudged gaily along, arriving pretty well fagged at our destination - a great glade of tenderest green, surrounded by magnificent trees on three sides; the fourth opening on to a dazzling white beach sloping gently down to the sea. Looking seaward, amidst the dancing, sparkling wavelets, rose numerous tree-clothed islets, making a perfectly beautiful seascape. On either side of the stretch of beach fantastic masses of rock lay about, as if scattered by some tremendous explosion. Where the sea reached them, they were covered with untold myriads of oysters, ready to be eaten and of delicious flavour.
What need to say more? With oyster-feeding, fishing, bathing, tree-climbing, tea-making, song-singing the hours fled with pitiless haste, so that, before we had half emptied the brimming cup of joys proffered us, the slanting rays of the setting sun warned us to return lest we should get "hushed" in the dark. We came on board rejoicing, laden with spoils of flowers and fish, with two-thirds of our money still in our pockets, and full of happy memories of one of the most delightful days in our whole lives.
A long night's sound sleep was rudely broken into in the morning by the cry of "Man the windlass." Having got all we wanted, we were bound away to finish, if luck were with us, the lading of our good ship from the teeming waters of the Solander grounds. I know the skipper's hopes were high, for he never tired of telling how, when in command of a new ship, he once fished the whole of his cargo - six thousand barrels of sperm oil - from the neighbourhood to which we were now bound. He always admitted, though, that the weather he experienced was unprecedented. Still, nothing could shake his belief in the wonderful numbers of sperm whales to be found on the south coasts of New Zealand, which faith was well warranted, since he had there won from the waves, not only the value of his new ship, but a handsome profit in addition, all in one season.
Hearing this kind of thing every day made me feel quite hungry to reach the battle-field; but, for reasons which doubtless were excellent, although I cannot pretend to explain them, we started north about, which not only added nearly one hundred miles to the distance we had to go, but involved us in a gale which effectually stopped our progress for a week. It was our first taste of the gentle zephyrs which waft their sweetness over New Zealand, after sweeping over the vast, bleak, iceberg-studded expanse of the Antarctic Ocean. Our poor Kanakas were terribly frightened, for the weather of their experience, except on the rare occasions when they are visited by the devastating hurricane, is always fine, steady, and warm. For the first time in their lives they saw hail, and their wonder was too great for words. But the cold was very trying, not only to them, but to us, who had been so long in the tropics that our blood was almost turned to water. The change was nearly as abrupt as that so often experienced by our seamen, who at the rate of sixteen knots an hour plunge from a temperature of eighty degrees to one of thirty degrees in about three days.
We, with the ready adaptability of seamen, soon got accustomed to the bleak, bitter weather, but the Kanakas wilted like hothouse plants under its influence. They were well fed and well clothed, yet they seemed to shrivel up, looking thinner every day, several of them getting deep coughs strongly suggestive of a cemetery. It was no easy task to get them to work, or even move, never a one of them lumbering aloft but I expected him to come down by the run. This was by no means cheering, when it was remembered what kind of a campaign lay before us. Captain Count seemed to be quite easy in his mind, However, and as we had implicit confidence in his wisdom and judgment, we were somewhat reassured.
The gale at last blew itself out, the wind veering to the northward again, with beautiful, spring-like weather, just cool enough to be pleasant, and, withal, favourable for getting to our destination. We soon made the land again about New Plymouth, jogging along near enough to the coast to admire the splendid rugged scenery of the Britain of the south. All hands were kept busily employed preparing for stormy weather - reeving new running-gear, bending the strongest suit of sails, and looking well to all the whaling gear.
In this active exercise of real sailor-work, the time, though long for an ordinary passage, passed quickly and pleasantly away, so that when we hauled round the massive promontory guarding the western entrance to Foveaux Straits, we were almost surprised to find ourselves there so soon.
This, then, was the famous and dreaded Solander whaling ground. Almost in the centre of the wide stretch of sea between Preservation Inlet, on the Middle Island, and the western end of the South, or Stewart's Island, rose a majestic mass of wave- beaten rock some two thousand feet high, like a grim sentinel guarding the Straits. The extent of the fishing grounds was not more than a hundred and fifty square miles, and it was rarely that the vessels cruised over the whole of it. The most likely area for finding whales was said to be well within sight of the Solander Rock itself, but keeping on the western side of it.
It was a lovely day when we first entered upon our cruising ground, a gentle north-east wind blowing, the sky a deep, cloudless blue, so that the rugged outline of Stewart's Island was distinctly seen at its extreme distance from us. To the eastward the Straits narrowed rapidly, the passage at the other end being scarcely five miles wide between the well-known harbour of the Bluff, the port of Invercargill, and a long rocky island which almost blocked the strait. This passage, though cutting off a big corner, not only shortening the distance from the westward considerably, but oftentimes saving outward bounders a great deal of heavy weather off the Snares to the south of Stewart's Island, is rarely used by sailing-ships, except coasters; but steamers regularly avail themselves of it, being independent of its conflicting currents and baffling winds.
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