Rediscovering Lady Barker

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 351, 11 May 1928, Page 14

Rediscovering Lady Barker

[Written for The Sun.] I OFTEN think that discovery is far less a compliment than rediscovery. Tasman discovered New Zealand; that is, he sailed along until his ship very nearly bumped into our shores, then turned about as fast as his sails would carry him and made off in a completely different direction. The true compliment was paid New Zealand when little whares of raupo and ti-tree started to go up along the banks of the Hutt. One wonders, sometimes, how many of the new book-lands discovered by literary Tasmans will ever be rediscovered and built on by dreamers of the future. None too many. The navigating race of critics is thrilled at least nine hundred and ninety-nine times a year by the sight of new islands, perhaps with branching towers upon them, perhaps with nothing but a green loneliness. For a little while the world hears all about them; then the critics sail away, and once in a little while the island birds become as mystical as Prester John’s phoenixes. But there’s a fine thrill in rediscovering an old book, which, however well it may be known to the really travelled, is not, so to speak, given a

very conspicuous place in any literary Baedeker. Lady Barker’s “Letters from a New Zealand Station” were published in 1870; and all those who have rejoiced with a whole heart over the “Sally in Rhodesia” books can be fairly confident that there is far more real enjoyment to be had in these letters of our grandmothers’ quaint and gallant days. The diary begins at sea. Poor Lady Barker! For weeks her world has rocked in most uncanny wise, and she has seen her husband—“the most ridiculous spectacle on earth,” says she —crouching, a prisoner, on a large chest of drawers, waiting for the waves to lie down and behave themselves. The real local interest of the book Is reached when the ship comes to New Zealand—New Zealand in a day when Nelson was a more attractive town than Wellington, and when Wellington shops, with their fine sandstone fronts concealing, or failing to conceal, the. flimsiest of wooden backs, seem to have shocked Lady Barker’s sturdy Ideas of architecture. However, she likes the people, “though,” she says, “as might be expected, there is a great deal of independence in bearing, especially among the servants; and I hear astounding tales of them from all aides.”

But the delights of the new land far outweighed Its trials. The party stayed awhile In a station where great masses of yellow banksia roses showered gold on smooth lawns. “The inside of the house,” she notes, “is as charming as the outside. But I am perpetually wondering how all the furniture, especially the fragile part of It, got here. When I remember the jolts, and ruts, and roughnesses of the road, I And myself looking at the pierglass and glass shades with a sort of respect, due to them for having survived so many dangers.” Then the great adventure began. The pioneers moved on to their sheeprun. a lonely spot in the Canterbury Plains. Like most newcomers, they were squatters, holding large areas of land, subject, however, to the depredations of “cockatoos.” Herewith the origin of that mysterious word. The small farmer, in order to have his share of the squatter’s broad acres, had only to apply for the freehold of whatever part he fancied. Notice was then given to the squatter, who, if he could, himself had the option of purchasing the freehold of the land. But if he could not produce the cash, the “cockatoo” forthwith builded his nest. The small farmer was so called because, like the cockatoo, he was said to take all the good out of one place, and then move on to another.

The station was set in a windy place, and, when English lawn grass had been carefully sown and had failed, under most minute inspection, to produce a blade of grass, it was no uncommon thing to find a patch of English grass cheerfully flourishing a few hundred yards from the house, whither the seeds had flown on the wings of Ihe wind. On one occasion Lady Barker suffered a double loss. During a night of gale, her bath and her cage of English canaries were both blown far and away, and only one of the canaries ever returned, to sing sentimental English songs to his mistress. Riding was done in crinoline, kilted up in some amazing manner which is very certainly a lost art. The New Zealand mountain ponies could climb anywhere, and where they could not climb they slithered, rider and all. A little should be said about the •baches of those days.

"Imagine a flat tray with two low seats on it, perched on four enormously high wheels, quite innocent of any step or means of clambering in and out, and drawn tandem fashion by two stout mares, one of which has a little foal by her side. "Such is her description; but Cobb’s coaches come in for some more or less honourable mention. The first stage of a journey to Timaru was taken under a very competent and fatherly old driver who, before yielding up the reins to a fellow, whispered, "You jest take and don’t be afraid, mfem. He handles the ribbings jest as well when he’s had a drop too much as when he’s sober—which ain’t often, however.” Whereupon he, “with one wild yell, dashed down a steep hill and into the Ashburton.” Proceedings were further enlivened when a lunatic, inside the coach, took off both boots and lighted a fire in them. Sport was as much part of a woman’s life as of the men’s. On one occasion, when a rash hunting party followed a wild boar with no other weapon than stones, and said boar, with complete lack of gallantry, promptly charged Lady Barker, she stunned him by dropping a large rock upon him. whereof a ballad was written: With his Jaws all extended and horrid, Fierce and foaming the brute leapt to gore her, When she dropped the rock full on his forehead, And 10, he lay dying before her. After three years in New Zealand, "England, home, and beauty” were sought—not without tears, both from the little Englishwoman and from her friends in the shepherds’ huts or on lonely ranch, made a little happier by her grace and hospitality. The epilogue of the book is a poem written by Lady Barker’s husband, "Now my days leave the soft silent byway.” ROBIN HYDE. Wellington.