THE RAMBLER IN NEW ZEALAND.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 14, 29 April 1871, Page 6

THE RAMBLER IN NEW ZEALAND.

INTRODUCTORY. The following papers are simply a series of sketches. They do not prettnd to be a series of scientific papers on the geology, botany, metereology, or any other ology of New Zealand. The writer does not pretend to have accomplished anything that will set Port Nicholson on fire, or render it necessary to call upon Captain Moss or Captain Whiteford, the worthy Superintendents of the Wellington Fire Brigades. , But in the course of a somewhat extensive tour round and through New Zealand, the writer contrived to steal a few hours from Idleness and to jot down a few of the ideas that were called up by the scenes which he visited, and the people with whom his lot was temporarily cast. NO. I. —ON THE WING I left the wharf at Onehunga in the steamer Taranaki on the 24th of February. Of course everyone remembers the fate of this fine steamer which, after lying many fathoms beneath the sea for fourteen months, was by human ingenuity and perseverance raised to the surface and restored to all her former elegance and usefulness. As I sit in the saloon, made handsome and attractive by the hahd of the painter and decorator, imagination conjures up the ugly “ monsters of the deep” that have made this place their habitation, and have traced without let or hindrance their slimy paths through the many passages. These places, now so light and pleasing to the eye, were then dark and dismal, and begrimed with the slime and the seaweed.

We crossed the Manukau bar, famous for ever from its being the scene of the Orpheus disaster. The very spot where one hundred and sixty gallant British seamen went down with three wild farewell cheers was pointed out to me. It seemed still enough that dull afternoon, save the white crested waves that told of the treacherous dangers beneath, and of what the place might be were its temper ruffled. What a scene it must have presented on that memorable Sunday when a magnificent British man-of-war, with almost every soul on board, found a grave on that spot! What anticipations of pleasant scenes and new associations crushed in a moment! What stern facing of the grim creditor when the ship was being greedily devoured in the foaming waters ! What a noble sense of duty done to the latest breath! and bow many tears must have been shed over that sad catastrophe ; how many a friend or relative mourned, or perchance “ A nearer and dearer one still,” Whose loss has made some heart desolate for evermore!

“ But men must work, “ And women must weep, “ And the sooner its over, the sooner to sleep, So good bye to the bar and its moaning; Why all this talk of depression and dull times ? Why does not some one float a Great Manukau Fishery Company, in 50,000 shares of £lO each ? It would be a far more promising speculation than some of the Thames companies that were launched with so many fond hopes, and were stranded and broken up amidst so much disappointment and vain regret. We anchored—or rather the steamer did—outside the bar until the tide was suitable for going on, and in the interval some of the disciples of Isaac Walton “ cast their lines in pleasant places.” The fish came and hooked themselves on; there had evidently been a famine amongst them, or the big fish (just like the big fish out of the water) had eaten up all that was to be got, and left nothing for the little ones. One old gentleman—who had probably fished in all the four quarters of the globe —covered himself with imperishable glory by almost filling a washtub with schnappers.

1 And here let me do as the “ captain with his whiskers” did in the song, “take a sly glance” at the passengers. They’re not a bad sort —for New Zealand. There are two or three ladies whose appearance relieves the monotony of the numerous mustachioed faces one . sees ; and under the circumstances I immediately think [them charming. Alas for the fallibility of human judgment, I afterwards found them to be dreadfully tmifftsh, and their conversation insipid. I am sorry to have to say such hard things of the softer sex, but “ I am in the place where” 1 leave the reader to finish the quotation, trusting he will make no mistake about it. There are several important looking personages, who I afterwards learn are commercial travellers. Heavens! what a flourishing thing the commerce of New Zealand must be when it can afford to keep so many people constantly travelling about in first-class style. Here half the saloon passengers are commercial travellers, and at least one-fourth captains, or are addressed as ceptains which amounts to thesame thing now-a-days, when captains and even fullblown colonels are as numerous as blackberries. It was a great relief to me when one of these awful personages was put ashore; I felt as though the ship had been considerably lightened. Touching the commercial travellers. Who pays the enormous expenses of the multitude of them one meets everywhere ? Is it the unfortunate consumer ? and, if so, cannot the mercantile houses find some better mode of communicating with customers, and so reduce the price of goods to the consumer ? OFF TO TARANAKI. “ Up, up with the anchor and let us away ” for Taranaki. The fisherman occupation is gone, and for a time there is nothing to relieve the tediousness of the passage; for one soon wearies of looking out upon the waves, watching the flight of the sea birds, or examining the vessel —and the commercial travellers are not conversational. I try one of the captains —in fact, I try the captain—Captain Wheeler, one of the pleasantest, most genial, good uatimed, good humoured, unaffected gentleman I ever met, and withal a splendid seaman —a man who would be true as steel at a pinch. You see this in a moment as soon as you look into his face. I had not long to wait for a specimen of the steadiness of his nerves, and the quickness of his eye. The captain is a capital marksman, and for a while he evinced his skill by firing at the seabirds, two of which had reason to rue it. Then a bottle was slung to the yard arm, and very soon all the passengers were intently watching a rifle contest between Captains Wheeler and Bain—the latter also a “jolly good fellow” and a thorough seaman. For the rest of the passage to Port Chalmers there was a constant demand for empty bottles, and the thirstiness of the saloon passengers by no means kept pace with the demand. The captains had a curious knack of cutting down the bottles, and Capt. Wheeler finished up on one occasion by smashing a neck which had been left hanging. There was on board a stout man, decently dressed, whose chief characteristic was diamonds. They glittered all over him; you couldn’t look at him from any point of view without seeing one. He bad a kind of diamond erysipelas. Though I made his acquaintance casually, and found him not a bad sort of fellow on the whole, the recollection of him will be for ever associated in my mind with diamonds, and nothing else but diamonds. He made me dream of diamonds that night. I came upon him while he slept: he suddenly dissolved away into one immense diamond, and gleefully I cut him up into pieces of convenient size, and carried portions of him away in my pockets! At Taranaki. Early as the hour is the Taranakians are up and doing. Two or three surf boats come out of the line of white foam that fringes the shore, and pull alongside. They are manned by strong, stalwart looking fellows, who chew tobacco and spit at random. Some’ of us go on shore to look at the place. There is a pleasant excitement about landing at Taranaki ; you ride in on the top of huge rollers, whose eccentricities must be studied if you don’t require a cold bath, and even then you cannot help a shower. “ Now, then, here comes a blind ’un,” says our coxswain, and the half spent force of a big green sea strikes our boat, driving it landwards like a mere cork. We land in a cart, which comes out into the water for us—fare one shilling. When I saw Taranaki, or New Plymouth, just ten years ago, it wore a very different aspect from that which it wears now. The “ pomp and circumstance of glorious war” are gone. The glory of the war never was very palpable, nor the pomp either, except in the despatches, but the circumstances are matters of sad history—history of rapine and bloodshed, desolated homes, and blasted hopes —history of bungle and mismanagement. But there are bright pages to illumine that « dark and sorrowful book—records of heroic self-sacrifice, of devoted patriotism and patient endurance of trials and sufferings. Every"acre of this land has been paid for in blood, hardly a spot that is not the resting place of some brave pioneer of colonization. New Plymouth has decidedly improved sißce I last saw it. The buildings are better, the streets are cleaner and more regular, the fields are greener and more cheerful-looking. There is vitality enough amongst the settlers here, and resources enough in the soil to work out a great future for the place. One of the best institutions in New Plymouth is its Literary Institute, which is most creditably conducted. The reading-room, lecture-room, and library are on the ground floor, and above them is a chamber which, by a convenient arrangement in the centre, is divided into a Court-house and Council Chambers. lam carted back to my surf boat, and I return to the steamer after half-an-hour’s stay in the Garden of New Zealand. We leave behind as a kind of legacy to the Taranakians, fcbe celebrated Lancashire Bell Ringers. C.O.M. (To le continued .)