NOT OF AN EXCURSION TO MASSACRE RAY.

New Zealand Colonist and Port Nicholson Advertiser, Volume I, Issue 41, 20 December 1842, Page 4

NOT OF AN EXCURSION TO MASSACRE RAY.

(Extracted from a letter to England.)

(Concluded from No. 38. )

1 low we packed ourselves away in the tiny cabin <>)' the Nelson Packet is hard to say. It was about four feet by six in dimensions, with berths all round. Each lay in his own cell, and erne in the middle spaee —like early Christian corpses in rock-catacombs of Rome, or beenymphs in ■waxen cells. By some elastic property in his body, the great .Jackson himself contrives to squeeze through a small hole into one of these boxes, and lies there as snugly ensconced as an unctious caterpillar in the wooden groove it eats out for itself in the trunk of a tree. We anchored this night off liauriri, our course from Tata having been N.W. a little westerly.

Saturday.—Captain Wakefield and went ashore in the boat, the frigate waiting for the tide. Between a quarter and half flood, Captain Jackson weighed anchor, got out his sweeps, and manfully carried his vessel across the shallow flats (touching once only) into the deep river channel, which, as usual with the rivers in this bay, instead of running* out to sea, keeps hugging* the coast for a mile or two, and flowing with a strong current beneath it. We rounded a hilly point of land, and brought up in a little basin or bay, formed by the river behind it, in some parts of considerable depth. This neck of land lying across the direction of the river, the latter has been forced to turn suddenly to the left, and has thus worn the flat into a basin, whence it escapes round the point aforesaid. We landed at the miserable pah, and found a few while men settled there. They were of several professions—carpenter, engineer, sailor, Ac., and, under the direction of one named Anderson, had built a schooner of I*2o tons or thereabout, to he called the Erin. Considering the circumstances, it certainly reflects high credit on the builders, though rather an odd-look-ing craft, and in form such probably as prevailed about the time “ of the subsidence of the waters on Mount Ararat,” as Sydney Smith says. Anderson, after a while, recognised Captain Wakefield as his old commander in a man-of-war steamer in the Mediterranean, which discovery caused his respect to rise immediately to reverence-heat. He amused the commodore by apologizing earnestly for the freedom of his lirst address, which, however, had been properly respectful. He begged us all to dine in his hut on fresh pork, which was promised. We then started to explore a little of the Hauriri.

This river winds down in several channels from the opposite side of the basin, where we lay at anchor, through mud flats covered with rushes, grass, or stones, and mostly dry at low water. Captain AVakefield, Philotoddydes (the keen sportsman), and I were in a see-sawing, leaky canoe (sitting uneasily on the cross sticks), paddled by a lazy but good-humoured old native. The Merovingian, E Moa (Moore), and a boy were in Captain Jackson’s “gig.” The river-banks are richly wooded, but for some distance up show signs of being flooded occasionally by freshets. We passed a clearance made by the ship builders, where some very lofty pines had been felled. We got several shots at wild duck, and were astonished at the numbers of shags on the trees, some of which were covered with their nests. Where the curving hank projected into the river, you would see these tall white birds studding tlie lofty trees literally as thickly as the white flower-cones on an* English horse-cliesnut in lull blossom.- They sat upright and perfectly motionless, their snowy breasts gleaming in the sun, till we came beneath them. After creeping about two and a-lialf or three miles up the river—the Merovingian and E Moa making incalculable doubles, and, armed with oars (their ammunition being expended), doing infinite battle with refractory clucks, which, though wounded, persisted in diving when come up with, and re-appearing many yards off, in a most annoying and unjustifiable manner—we found the water too shallow to proceed, so landed at a beautiful spot on a broad pebbly bank like a shingle beach, round which the river rushes brilliantly and rapidly with a sudden bend. Before us, on the opposite side, rose two high hills, clothed with superb trees —one pyramid shaped, the other round topped, a perfect arch in outline. The clusters of treeferns, with their broad, drooping fan-leaves—-the cabbage-palms, like miniature cocoa-nut trees, overhanging the river—the exuberant foliage, with its soft bright lights and soft black shadows, so rich and velvet-like —the ruddy kakas, or occasional green parroquets —and the bright air trembling in the glowing sunshine, strongly reminded us of the tropics without their disagreeable heat. The round hill before us was part of one which we had noticed from first passing Separation Point, blue and shadowy in the distance, which the commodore likened to the head of a whale. The Captain pushed through the wood to the side of the river above the turn, and finding it formed a rapid there, we descended at once. Though we had had a lounging, easy day of it, I do not remember that we were wanting in doing

justice to honest Anderson’s fresh pork and potatoes.

After dinner, Captain Wakefield and [ crossed the basin for a stroll. One of the white settlers offered his services to pull us across. His appearance was rather singular. You could not have passed him without noticing him, or knowing him to be (as he was) a Yankee. Fancy a tall, guant creature in a straw hat, as thin as the living skeleton, with a long, knotty, crane neck, which seemed to have pushed all his face up to where his forehead should be. His complexion was of an unhealthy boiled-parsnip colour, and reminded one of Browning’s line in Paracelsus —

“ Chill mushrooms, coloured like a corpse’s cheek.’’

llis keen, anxious eyes were deep set and very close together, looking straightforward, as if ready to pounce upon any track of possible advantage opened up by a beak-like nose of cutting sharpness ; his cheeks awfully hollow—features, incapable of expressing keenness, being sacrificed of course. Dim thoughts of ostriches and rats, and inconceivable combinations of the two, came across you as you stared at him. You felt his face when exposed to it, like a cutting north-easterly wind in England. It struck a chill through your limbs—to settle, perhaps, finally in your pocket. His very look made you hungry : gin and bitters for giving an appetite, I should think were nothing to it. Taking wine with him across the table at a lord mayor’s feast would have made a satisfied aiderman send straightway for a third plate of turtle. His glance drew up your diaphragm, and your pinched gastric regions shrunk as if withered. And his figure was as sharp as his face. He seemed all edge. Touch him where you would you would cut your fingers. YVhat a contrast to our portly Captain Jackson ! When together they looked like the respective genii of Feasting and Fasting—Jackson all florid fatness, jollity, and juice—Jonathan all bony rapacity, parchment, and drought. You could have rolled up the very shadow of the former into something more substantial than the latter. With all this, he seemed obliging* and good-natured, like most of his countrymen, perhaps partly from mere restlessness and desire to be incessantly doing something. His talk, too, was sensible, and acute of course. He possessed that ready perception of natural capabilities of soil, situation, &c., usual in natives of young countries. He had an intuitive consciousness of the best way for a road to run almost before he saw the country it was to run through, and a “ water-privi-lege” he knew by instinct, as horses, according to some sailors, know the longitude. He had, it seemed, squatted on and cleared a small piece of land somewhere higher up the coast, which he confessed frankly he had given nothing for to any one. “He would not humbug about it,” was his expression. I hope poor Jonathan will be unmolested in his “clearance” and “betterments,” and raise enough produce to get fat upon some day.

We walked some distance over a low table land, intersected by dry gullies and others with clear running water, some of which Jonathan assured us flowed all the snmmer. The soil was poor, and almost a mass of fine fibres of fern-root. As we returned we had a beautiful view of Mount Egmont, then about 100 miles off by the chart. We saw only the part covered with snow. It formed a perfectly straight-sided pyramid, with a broad base resting on the horizon, and was of an uniform rose-colour from the sunset. We slept on board again at night, stout Captain Jackson having engagements on shore.

Sunday, September 11.—Breakfasted at Anderson’s. The Maories, in number about fifty, went to prayers afterwards in the open air: they uttered them with the same rapidity and exact coincidence of articulation we had noticed in the natives of Taupo. There was the same garnish of groans, too. Indeed—whether from prejudice on our side or not I cannot say—hut there did seem on these occasions far too much consciousness, on the part of tha natives, of the meritoriousness, or supposed meritoriousness, of what they were engaged in. You could not help thinking that the impression they imagine they produce on white people, and the greater estimation the latter hold them in for the performance of these rites, is at least as powerful a. motive to their apparent zeal as conviction of the truth and necessity of what they are uttering. Some of them, however, remained in the hut, and two women chatted outside it. Misoporcus and I joined them; the rest, though at a distance, seemed much more attentive to us than their prayers. One of these ladies would not attend because her white quasi-husband did not like it—the other, I suppose, from superior illumination. She was knowing and sharp enough, certainly, and took up English words very quickly, of which she knew a good many. Like numbers more, she had acquired some of the slang gestures and phrases of the respectable marine birds of passage who flit about these shores in the shape of whalers and other nondescrips, and often contented herself with answering a question with a mere “ too muchy de green,” at the same time pulling down the under lid of one of her eyes with her finger. She professed to be ashamed (“ me shamey”) to attempt English before us. They seem mighty fond of “being ashamed,” and are, to do them justice,

decorous enough. There were but two tolerably good-looking women among the whole set. Each had very dark eyes, anil a thick mass of hair parted on the forehead, an oval face, narrowing downward from the brows, and rather flat nose and thick lips, though not at all disagreeably so.

We did not learn much of Maori habits and notions. The tattoo, we were told, is employed to distinguish members of different tribes, especially in battle. If so, the scattered parties we met with on this excusion are most heterogeneous mixtures —the figures and lines scarcely being even in general arrangement similar in any two. Another object was, that their heads might make a handsome appearance when cut off and captured by enemies. We heard also that those parts of the body which were considered the choicest morsels when cooked, were also adorned in this manner —a custom betokening a regard for posthumous personal appearances—for one’s glory and reputation when produced in the form of hot shoulders and cold rounds, which heats Pope’s “ poor Narcissa’s” out and out, whose words you may parody to suit this occasion, if you please—

One would not, sure, be frightful when a stew,

And, Betty, lend this cheek a little blue. This piece of information may, however, have been mere “toi” (towy), as the natives say—a word best translated by that expressive one “ gammon.” They cut off’ their hair on the death of relatives, and bury their chiefs sometimes squatting in their finest silky mats. The few straggling individuals in the northern part of this island seem hardly to have any customs or peculiarities decided enough to make them interesting.

We took leave of the Hauriri natives (with whom we were much more pleased than with those at Tata) about noon, and got out at half flood, Captain Jackson having at daylight marked out the channel by sticking poles into the ground. The natives sat along the brow of the small hill we were rounding, motionless, looking more like a row of bushes than living creatures. Captain Jackson took out his frigate in gallant style. The quarter-deck spirit was strong upon him —R.N. “ looked out in all he uttered.” Every gesture bespoke command. An old worthy, named Sutton, who had once been skipper of a whaler, and who was therefore generally treated with the prefix of Captain, was what might be called his first lieutenant. He was rather deficient in subordinate officers and crew, certainly, these being all represented by the slight figure of a little halfcaste boy adopted by Captain Jackson, whose sharpness and impudent knowingness would have made one suppose him the native of “ a corner of the stone jug” in Newgate Street, London, rather than an indigenous production of Eaheinoinawe. A passenger, a quasi-captain, too, Captain Moore (E Moa), was aiding and assisting ; and Captain Wakefield took the helm. With this crew of captains, by commission of her Majesty or courtesy of New Zealand, the illustrious Jackson carried his vessel past all dangers —himself towering over the bows, “ in shape and gesture proudly eminent,” looking out for snags or rocks, giving his orders with dignified and cheerful promptitude: “ Steady now, sir.”—“ Keep her so, sir.”—“ She’ll do it, if anything will.”—“ Take a cast of the lead, Captain Sutton.”—“Allright— touch-and-go's a good pilot,” &.c. With a light breeze we soon anchored off Tcita, near the Elizabeth, and in the afternoon went ashore, and korrero’d with the impracticable Ekkawa, who, “ full of sound and fury signifying nothing,” was urging somebody else’s claim for utu. “ Wad-awak,” (as they call him), after a quiet hint to him “ not to get in a rage on Sunday,” admitted this claim too ; and we parted with expressions of perfect satisfaction from ail of them. We slept on hoard the Elizabeth.

Monday, Sept. 12.—Set sail about eleven, a.m. It rained almost unceasingly all day. We beat round Separation Point against a fresh breeze. Although confined most part of the day to the cabin, we contrived to he as merry as usual. Next morning we had a dead calm; and about one, p.in., des]iairing of a breeze, we left the vessel in the Deal boat; and after (for the men) a fagging pull of five or six hours, with beautiful weather over a glassy sea—a lunch or dinner where we sat in the stern—the usual remarks as the houses and gardens of Nelson came in sight, “ How green that .patch of peas is looking!” “ What a view they must have from that new white house!” And a strong pull, and a pull altogether, across the tide rushing out of the harbour entrance —we landed at the Haven, and soon after welcomed the wide-scattered clusters of lights in the town, now in darkness, the barking of dogs, and the occasional laughs or shouts overcoming the distance —with a home-feeling for a place where, a short twelvemonth before, nothing but the monotonous roar of the sea on the Boulder Bank, or the howl of angry winds, had for ages broken the silence of the solitary and uninhabited shore.