The Nobelist.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2117, 16 October 1875, Page 4

The Nobelist.

By W. M. B.

A TON OF GOLD! 08, THE NARRATIVE OF EDWARD CR'EWE.

A Tale of Looal Interest.

Chapter IV. — Continued.

Your Europeans at all times desire to keep the aboriginal in his place, and none but very foolish or simple people eat with them, or allow " the nigger " to feed in the dining sanctum of the civilized. And rightly too, for your savage man is very different from our noble selves, so diverse, indeed, that I cannot think that they are of the same species. I may be very wrong, but I can hardly fancy an Australian black to be " a man and a brother." I would as lief have a gorilla for my remote ancestor as some of the South African tribes—creatures so malformed in. body, from immense development of some parts to the spindling of the rest of the body, that activity is impossible; The Terra del Fuegians are of a low type, whose great Work of art is in their canoes—and yet these leak so as to keep one of the crew always baling : I will admit they may be men, but can hardly do so in the case of the Guyracui Indians, who have short tails of inconvenient dtiffness, necessitating the owners to carry a pointed stick, with which to make a hole in the ground, in order to sit down comjnodiously. These tribes are situated about latitude 24deg. 6niin. S. at the head waters of the Parana. They build no huts, use no clothes, have no knowledge of fire, cannot be taught to speak even when taken young. And if any of my readers wish to know more of these vice peopled beg to refer them to 'Masterman's Travels in South America.'

Savages, like other creatures, want treating with judment; they are useful, and often ornamental, but the best of them have such peculiar ideas of what is fit and proper to put into their stomachs, and are also so singular in their manner of conveying food to that receptacle, that it is always advisable for them to eat by themselves, besides, a propinquity and partnership, duriDg the process of alimentation, tends to induce a disagreeable familiarity. Indeed, ye gentlefolks of England, you need not go from home to be cured of pTiilo-aboriginalism, and take my word for it, should you look in the right places if you do not find species different from the " genus homo, you will surely discover many specimens who only require, a few joints added to the "os coccyx " to suggest to your mind a difference of origin. I again took to the steering. " We will have something better in the morning for breakfast," said Janson. " I will make this Maori boil some pork and cook some potatoes, so' rouse him up at daylight, Mr Crewe." After this the wind fell away, and Janson went below, as also did the native, who turned in somewhere forward, I [taking the first watch on deck, agreeing to call them at daylight, or if the wind got up. But the breeze fell away almost to a palm, and we made little or no way; at inter* vals, indeed, a flaw of air would come, and then we dodged on a bit. It was a beautiful starlight night, showing the Southern Cross very clearly, 1 though I do think it requires an effort of the imagination to see " a cross," perhaps the more so as there are several false crosses which are frequently visible, whilst the true cross is under a cloud. Whether there are more stars to be seen on a clear night in New Zealand, or in the old country, I cannot say ; but the southern hemisphere appears more of a mixed medly, and requires great patience to separate and know the many constellations. , Nowhere does time pass so slowly as when you are on deck alone at night, with no wind to fairly fill the sails; I assure you in such a case four hours appear equal to double that time conjoined with sunshine and pleasant company. Is the thing we call time an invention to suit humanity, or, at the most, for the t benefit of the tenants of the solar system? What we call a year, and fancy, or rather feel, to be some time, may be but a moment, a flash, to the inhabitants of Mars, Venus, or Mercury, and yet the length of their day, Greenwich measurement, is nearly the same as our own ; their night may appear to them to consume no more time than the darkness does that obstructs our retina during the twinkling of the eye, or it may be just the other way, and, compared with our estimate, be a slowgoing arrangement. Time suggests so handy a method for recording past events that I cannot help thinking that there must have been some sort of measure always, some self-acting apparatus, long before this planet was " set a going." But all this.time where am IP Why, almost or entirely asleep sitting on the poop, my legs dangling and just reaching the main deck. Janson's schooner was not flush fore and aft like most crafts of like tonnage, but kad this poop and long tiller, resembling some old Dutch galiot, indeed my friend had there got his model. A main sheet from either side led through a bbek just handy to the man steering. I mention- this as the boom and sheets with blocks attached took charge of the deck when a heavy squall struck us later in the day. ... To keep myself awake I tried by careful steering to make the most of what little wind there was, but soon got tired of that, so let her drift. Then I thought I would fish, as I had seen a line or two on the hatch; so, baiting with a bit of pork from the harness cask, I sat down on the rail to try thy luck, but could get no bites, for we were going over the ground too fast, drifting with the tide, to fetch the bottom. Then I walked up and down and wished for daylight, when I should wake up Janson and the Maori. At last, alter I liad been dead asleep half a dozen times, to come to life again each time with a start, I saw it was getting a trifle less dark, so I roused up the Maori and Hanson-with much shouting, and byihe time I had them on deck the day had fairly dawned. , It was now-my. " watch below. 1 soon turned in and was asleep ia a niiuute. j'had been asleep some two hours, aud

was dreaming that I was " the last man," a. favourite dream of mine. It was not distinct to my perception how it all came about, bnt it seemed very certain and quite true that all men were dead. I seemed to be in a town, whose streetswere very still and empty. I did not enter any of the houses, and therefore cannot say whether the dead were there, or whether they had buried each other as they died. I was impressed with the thought that it must be so, and that the people of this town, and, indeed, of all the world, had not had much other occupation for some considerable time past. I found myself close to some slables where many half-starved horses were. I set them free; off they clattered down the street to gain the country. I was rather glad to be the only man in the world. I felt myself above humanity and that nothing could I ill me. I thought of friends and people I bad known who would have been "real sorry," and who would have cried, and shown a proper distress for so strange a calamity befalling the human race.

I tried to get up a sensation of grief, and strained my mind, thinking how so and so would have acted if they had been in my place. I also wished much to be able to say hereafter how I wrung my hands and otherwise played my part with proper feeling. I awoke from my dream only to hear Janson bellowing down at me. " Crewe, Mr Crewe! are you dead ? You're hard to wake. Ido not think you would rouse out if it was the last day." Half awake Janson's words fell in with the tenor of my thoughts and made my past dream more vivid, "Get up," continued the skipper. " Mere is breakfast and a good breeze of wind, and likely for more. House out, and give me a hand to get the dingy on board before she comes to grief. She has been making believe to come on deck on her own hook for the last half hour."

' " All right, Janson ! I hear. Do you think I am deaf ? "

I was on deck in a minute, finding my way with only one eye 9j>en, and still partly asleep. Then I found that things had changed, for the schooner was now well heeled over and plunging through the water famously. Janson was getting the dingy roqnd to leeward; I ran to midships, and as the native who was steering shook the wind out of the sails, hooked on the tackle, and leading it to our skipper's universal panacea for " short of hands," the winch, we quickely had her on board, and, after a short struggle, •on to the windward side.

"For you see," said Jansou, "it will blow Heavens bard soon, and I wish we had four or five tons more ballast."

" Where are we now ? " I asked, for as yet I had been too busy to look round.

" That," said Janson, " is the Sandspit Island," pointing astern, " and we are laying our course with something to spare ; and headland to windward they call ' Oreri,' a wild and rather barren country." " Who lives there ? " I asked. " Ahoa," he said to the Maori, " Kowai te iwi ke uta ? " " Te Ngatitamatara," replied our native was the name of the tribe who had a settlement near there. After breakfast, which was an improvement on the meal over-night, as* far aa a lump of salt pork badly, and some potatoes nicely, cooked by our aboriginal " chef " made it.

We took in some sail, for it blew vicious, and in squalls, every recurring one seemed heavier than the last. We had taken in the foresail and were thinking of a reef in the mainsail, indeed had just lowered the throat and peek halyards, and Janson and the Maori were tugging at the reefingtackle, the latter only in his shirt, which the wind tore at, and flicked about like " a washing " on a line in a windy day, Janson singing to every pull, and encouraging the native to do his best and not to mind the vagaries. of his apparel, doing himself at the same time the work of two men, like a sturdy mariner as he was.

In the midst of this, down came another squall more spiteful than any. "Look out," I cried, as we heeled over.

I thought we should never stop. The water poured in over the rail, and rising above the level of the combing of the main hatch, streamed in a cataract below. I hung on to windward, and could have sat on the schooner's side quite well; up went the boom carrying away .first the windward then the lee sheets, as if to try and make a mast of itself. Down it came snapping the " toping lift," up again ! I heard things in the cabin —well, changing places. Then the boat slipped first against the combing of the hatch, then, turning right over, brought up against the rail and lee rigging. Janson and the Maori were up to their necks in water. The latter's face was a sight, so much had it increased in length and pallor. Janson alone laughed as we righted, remarking, " That was a screamer!" " Why, Janson, I thought she was going to turn turtle." "No fear," he replied, " the old girl would never serve us so shabby a trick." It seemed as if the squalls were now over, for the sun came out a bit and they became lesa and less forcible. But our sails were in ribbons ; indeed, if they had not given away under the pressure we should certainly have been upside down. After this, we set what sail we could, and then " turned to " to repair as best we might the damage sustained. Fortunately there was plenty of sewingtwine on board, together with needles, two palms, and a lot of old canvass, so that in the course of two hours, by dint of hard work and long stitches, we had so patched up the mainsail as to be able to j set it before we neared the land on the j other s;de of the Firth. At the debouchure of the Thames and Piako Bivera the shore is so little above the water that the first indication of land is the "Eaikatia" forest, which is in reality many miles inland. It was afternoon when we arrived off the mouth of the river, but as the tide was on the ebb, could go no further until the next flood.

We lay off a Maori settlement called Kaweranga, perhaps half a mile from the beach, and could plainly see and hear too that, something was going on amongst the natives, who, in two separate but compact parties of apparently about 200' men each, were dancing alternately to some kind'of tune with great .energy and noise. As they all jumped io perfect time from

the ground like one man, we seemed to see right under and beyond the " mob." " "Ah I" said Jauson, " there will bo a fpasjb going on ashore, I guess," and referring to the native, we heard that there hiid been some likelihood of a figbfc about "land," but that " a lasting peace " was now concluded, and that the war-dance going on ashoro was only to show each other what they could do supposing things had been otherwise and they bad not made friends.

Ah! "that land question " was always a source of trouble in jS"ew Zealand, like anything else when the ownership is uncertain.

Before the " pakeha " came laud was of no value. How could it? when there were no buyers or sellers of that commodity ; when watery insipid " Kumara " with a chance bed of Taro and gourds were the only plants cultivated, and these in Lilliputian quantity. What is the use of land if nothing is done towards its cultivation ?

There were no hunting-grounds as in America, the only game being men, barring a few birds, and the tribes fought and hunted each other—for sport! and fed copiously on the proceeds of the chase, or the chances were even, that furnished in themselves a cannibalistic repast. The Maori man is by nature a fightative character — quite heroic and poetical in his way—fond of talking of hair breadth escapes and noble deeds of his ancestors. Yes, quite as noble as many European heroes,- and the only difference a Maori could discriminate would be this, that the Polynesian eats the choicer portions of his vanquished enemy, which is a clear gaiu to his commissariat, whereas the civilized murderer in v large way has a wasteful habit of burying his killed in the ground. On no subject have the natives become more touchy than on the ownership of the soil, and eminently ever ready to rush to arms with each other or with the " Pakeha," no matter whether the block of land in dispute be big or little, of much value or worth nothing, there is a " never mind " the results kind of talk, and also, perhaps, an irresistible charm in the excitement and consequent pleasure of a row, that is truly " Maori," and almost Irish. Before the advent of Europeans and pigs, the only chance the natives of New Zealand had of occasionally replenishing the larder was by a raid upon their neighbours ; a chief might certainly kill a slave now and again, though I never hea yd that it was accounted a gentlemanly act to do so, and only proper during the visit of some high-born friend. I wish any one joy who goes to buy land from the natives, of this I am sure, that he will pay for it full value. To be continued.