"AS WE SHALL BE SEEN."

Pukekohe & Waiuku Times, Volume 8, Issue 438, 3 January 1919, Page 1

"AS WE SHALL BE SEEN."

A Visionary Retrospect Specially written for the " Tunte I had always been somewhat curious to know what history would have to say about us all, say three thousand years from now, and having been lent one of Mr H. G. Wells' ingenious time machines, which hare the wonderful faculty (simply by haying the handle turned backward or forward) of taking us bask to the remotest recesses of the past—to the very beginning of time, or into the misty regions of the far-off future, I determined to seize the opportunity. Mr Wells, I believe, gets into the machine himself, and in person travels at will through the vistas erf eternity ; but I thought it would be safer to make enquiries by letter, so I wrote a request for a history of the early days of Pakekohe, addressed it to myself (in the hope that my name might have been transmitted to one of my descendants) and turned the handle forward till the index indicated thirty centuries. A few days after I found a letter on the pWorm of the machine, which contained (among a lot of purely private and family matters) the following notes on the history of Pukekohe : The mighty city of Pukekohe, wi th its three seaports of Mercer, Waiuku. and Auckland, has for many conturies been by far the richest and most populous city in the world. But, like many other famous places, it had a humble origin. It was originally discovered by a certain Colonel Cody, an artist, whose pictures are still spoken of as being most moving. The Colonel was familiarly known as "Buffalo Bii!," from the steed that he used to ride, which was graphically described by a writer of the period as a square animal with a leg at each corner, and was called by the vulgar "a cow." The name Pukekohe is derived from two ancient Coptic words, meaning Hill of Cedars. Not long after its discovery King Solomon obtained from it the timber used in building his well-known temple, which was burned by the German? when they took Jerusalem from the Anzacs. The belief prevalent at one time that the timber came from Libanon was due to the slyness of Hiram, King of Tyre, who had the contract for supplying it, and did not wish the public to know where it came from in order that he might make a corner in cedar. A few generations later Sir Walter Raleigh happened to pass by one of the clearings Hiram had made during his timber-getting, and, noting the richness of the soil he planted the first potato, and so laid the foundation of Pukekohe's future greatness. In the meantime the descendants of Colonel Cody's buffalo had increased and multiplied, and about the nineteenth or twentieth century a genius named Robert de Waikato discovered that by applying sufficient pressure it was possible to squeeze from th<v body of this animal a w)"id which could be mad" "'nto ft variety of useful foods As wpII as button* and kni.fe-V; 4 Q(ilflß. For this great to mankind h* was permitted Tby the May Or of the day to assume I the surname of Good Fellow, which I is still borne by his descendants. To add to the (rood fortune that seemed to follow Pukekohe, about the same time a noted philanthropist named Peter discovered the celebrated food " muscle raiser," which was made from a grain that grew to perfection in and around the town. Because " muscle-raiser " was an epitome of all the virtues, its discoverer was permitted to call himself Peter Virtue. Pukekohe was now in possession of a practical monopoly of three universal foods, and began rapidly to grow rich and prosperous To add to its good luck, about this period Dr. Wilson, the well-known author of the immortal work known as " Notes of a Pacifist," assured the freedom of the seas by handing over the warships of the English pirates to the Kaiser of Germany, whose navy had had to take to under-water voyages to avoid the attacks of these ocean bullies, and thus the inhabi tants of Pukekohs were enabled to trade safely with the rest of tho world. Waiuku bpcame its chipf port, and somewhere about thi* period a wonderful engineer, named Ken Neddy, made the Waikato river deepen its channel to admit the larg est ships by the simple expedient of driving in a few sticks here and there, and Mercer soon became another outlet for the city's vast oversea trade Early in the twentieth century Pukekohe gnt yet another lift towards prosperity On the banks of the Waitemata lived a rule and lawless community ruled over by a chief who bore the strange title of Son of a Gun. because he was said to go off pop when anyone disagreed with him The principal characteristics of t e Au kland people were their quarr • ■< >m di<-posi'i'in« and their dirtv h 7 heir habitations were so fi thv ihat devastating epidemics and i>l £!!•'« spread from them over the urn e country Even th" rnos' *tr ngdy worked f tiled *o mike rh ,j BP b> n : tfhted ht*u'hen« understand that deaniinnNS is nnxt, to g >'lines*, and th* village w is finallv buried down by the orders of Di Russell, an eminent medical man, noted among the ancient! for the

gentleness of his demeanour and the suave courtesy of his manners. The truculent i.liief and the greater part of his followers perished in the flames, and all that was left were the wharves: and in this manner Pukekohe became possessed of its third port. With regard to the religion of the period a little obscurity prevails, but it is plain that worship of the cow formed a chief part of the ritual. It is said that the people paid their devotior* to it at sunrise and suosefc, and it ; • f-rtain that the high priest was <:a;iod Cowie, and the chief ex ecu f ioner was known as Cowan. The motit pious and fervent sect had the mystic title of " I. W.W.," and their creed wn<> i simple one, for it consisted simply in denying the inspirai ti?n of the first half of the text •'•Watch and prey." A feature of their religious services was the collection, which was made by force from those who followed the teachAs of the first half of the text. lln ancient times the city was ruled by a monarch, who was termed the May Or. His full title was the May 0? May Not, because he alone decided what subjects might or might not do, but it was for convenience shortened as above. The most celebrated of these May Ors was also the inventor of the hermetic glass-jar that still bears his name. It is said that his idea was to use these jars to keep his wiski in, the said whiski being an ardent spirit much used in those de.ys to rub on painful excresecces called corns which came on the feet as the result of walking. When wo learned to overcome the law of gravitation and glided through the air, walking became a lost art, and corns vanished, and the use for whiski ceased. One lamentable eflect of this was that the great families of German Jews, who used to amass layige fortunes by its sale, fell into poverty and left the country. How.Mason jars are still in geneuse as urns Tor o/ the dead after cremation { A prominent pioneer of Pukekohe was Kaspar, the great-grandson of Annie Laurie, who was remarkable for the leng'h of his neck, which was skid to resemble that of a swan, jjlis first name Appears to have been Rrank. and he was for many years a niember of that barbarous institution called Parliament, representing an outlying suburb of Pukekohe called Darnell. For many centuries he was stipposed to be the original of the central figure in the wonderful poem 'j It was a famous victory," because ojf the words " Old Kaspar's work Was done," which occur in it; but &pout nine hundred years ago a letter found (yellow with age, but still decipherable) bearing his signature, iji which he complains that his work %as never done So it is evident was more than one Kasnar kjnown to the ancients This letter if;, one of the most valued possessions of the Museum of Antiquities in Howard street, Patumahoe. |- / Another prominent figure was that of Asshur. the Scribe. Before coming t<- Pukekohe, he was emploped in | engraving the deeds of the Assyrian ; kings upon clay bricks, but after | fail of Nineveh business in that line ■ voame slack, and he emigrated to j the rising city in the sontli. While there he conducted a periodical called "Tiie Times," which was much used by the butchers to wrap up sausages, and in this manner contributed to the prosperity of the town. This periodical was issued at first twice a week, but the title was stolen by the scribe of a place called London (on the other side of the world) and a daily paper issued under the same name. This caused the Pukekohe paper to change its name to the '• Daily Yapper," which it still bears. It is said that in his old age the Scribe Asshur had the satisfaction of standing with L :rd Macauley upon a broken arch of London Bridge, and gazing upon the ruins of London. A few mutilated copies of the original •' Times " are carefully preserved in the Howard street museum, and are valued as some of the few links which remain to us of the early days of Pukekohe. They are the more interesting because it is plnii, from internal evidence, that the writer* to paper were the identical m m King David spoke of in his h s'e. From ihis my descendant went, on to describe the wondi-r* of rhe Pukekohe uf hi« own time, which has of course no rdace in a history of our own day.l must say I was disappoint d riot End my name in his account of early Pukekohe, and that the only refer ence to me was the oblique one about David having me up correctly. It is sad to think of our race becoming ao decadent in a few thousand years that the highest literary art should be forgotten