Traveller. Three Weeks in Southland, N.Z.

Waikato Times, Volume XXIV, Issue 1976, 7 March 1885, Page 2 (Supplement)

Traveller. Three Weeks in Southland, N.Z.

By Frank Mohlet.

(Continued.) 11 How do yon manage to ret along safely in suoh a night as this, captain, without land mark, or light, or anything of the sort to guide you ?" I 3fk. " Well," replied the Captain, " in daylight, of course, it is. simple enough, as there are no snags, and "we can steer by the headlands; but at nipht it is somewhat more difficult, and I give them the courte by the compass*." ' " That is all very well m. cho open ocean ; but here tho smallest deviation and five minutes steaming on a wrong course will send you smashing against a stone wall." " That's true," replied thp captain ; "and, by the wny, a party of Victorians got an awful fright last year, in a night something like thi3 for darkness, only it was blowing pretty throng as well. Thpy were an excurpion party, composed of some of the Victorian Ministry, with the Minister of Eailways at thoir head. Being anxious to go to the head of the lake, they chartered the steamer. At first I refused to go, as the weather was so bad; and I knew what navigating Lake Wakatip waa in bad weather and darkness ; but they insisted, and so we started. It ih my custom always to go full steam, as hard as ever the engineß can drive her — " " ThB blank it is !" says I, with an accent indicative of surprise ; " I should have thought that, on the contrary, on such a night you would have been more than usually cautious." " So I am unusually cautious," continued the captain, cmilinq ; but caution, in this case, consiota in apparent rashness ; and I pile on the coal and steam ahead furiously into the darkness, bo that I shall know where I am." • IVs," I remarked, rather dubiously ; " you wonk 1 find out where you were, I suppose, when you smashed up against the basalt on Pig Island, or Pigeon Island ; and found yourpelf, and the Mountaineer, at the bottom of Lake Wakatip, with tweWe hundred feet of ice cold water aboro you 1" " So, apparently, thought the Minister of Railways from Tictoria, when he oame to me upon the bridge and informed me that I was running a great link in going at such a rate , and told me that I should be more careful of the lirei of the passengers entrusted to my care 1" " And, of course, you thanked him for his courtesy in offering you such sound advice, and immediately went half-speed," I observed, with & feeble attempt at irony. "The fact is," continued the Captain, "I was more uneasy and worried than I like to acknowledge ; for I knew I must be somewhere in the vicinity of the Islands ; and it was so dark and stormy that I could not see my hand before me, hardly ; so I told the Honorable Blank that I allowed no one to interfere with me while on duty, and requested him to l^ave the bridge." " Well, I think you were quite right, Captain ; and I am surprised at thb Honorable Blank Blank forfeiting himself so far as to Attempt to advise you." "No doubt I was right," continued the Captain, in his quiet way ; " but I would that it n°u been done a little more politely ; only, you &cc, my whole attention, and everj faculty that I was master of, were at full tension in a moment of great responsibility, and when the least mistake would have been fatal ; and I hadn't time to be polite." " But you came through all rjght, or el«e you wouldn't be here to tell the story," I remarked, as I offered the Captain a cigar, which, to my surprise, he declined, on the plea that he never smoked. "Oh yes," says the Captain ; and just as I was thinking what j I should cay to the Hon. Blank Blank to tone down my rather rough Bpeech of the previous night, he came up to me and apologised for his interference, Pcknowledged he was wrong, and complimented me on the masterly way, &c, Ac, you know 1 I told him thoie was so harm done, and explained that my reason for going full speed on such an occasion waß that when I drove her as hard as she could go I knew exuotly bow many miles we bad

gone in a given time ; and could, thoroforo, know niy position to a very little ; but if I kept backing and filling, going now fast and now slow, sometirnps half speed and sometimes full speed, I could never tell where I was. " So now you understand," continued Captain Win<?, " my reason for going full speed. I drive her on for, say, half an hour on one course as hard as she can go ; I then know I have gone, say, six miles north, five degrees west; then, pet haps I change her course five degree, and go due nortn for 15 minutes, or way three miles, then on my chart I plot out the direction and distances run, and know where I am. When I have gone as far bs I think I ought to go with safety at full speed, I then stop her altogether, or go dead slow, until I fiud out where we are. But we are coming near the Islands now and I rausc be „ff " Whereupon the Captain took up hi? position on t!.e bnd o L', aud I waa leh to my own reflections. Wh parsed the Islands shortly after, but I had to tako thrir existence on trust, a 1 * I certainly eculd not define them in the darkness. About c .) o'clock, we muv the twinkling lights of Kinloch ahead of us ; and in a fe'T miMitet more wo were scrambling on to the jcttj, amid piles of firewood stacked ready for Mhipment ; while the landlady of the Glacier Hotel, li'»e Hero watching for her Leander r.s he swam the Hellespont, held hi^h aloft an ancient but serviceable stable lamp to guMe the faithful Mountaineer across the Wakblip. After some painful stumbling, and not improbably a little mild dashing and •pshawing at suudry encounters v»ith soft logs, we gamed the Glacier Hotel ; and here, again, we found that the mild and harmless whisky of our youth ht.d given way to the foreign and perfidious bourbon. I pledge the Ciptain in palo brnndy ; and he, partakiag of & similar poißo.i, departs once more for the hamlet at ihe other aide of the lake, whore he will lieto until the morning. As there is nothing to be gained by remaining in the bar of the Glacier HeW, which, as inu.y be supposed, is not quite sc gorgeous as it is useful ; combining, as it doe?, the dual functions of a bar and ptneral store, I follow the guidance of a charming demoiselle who volunteers to show mo the house, and shortly find myself before a large fireplace and a smaU flee in a -omewhat cheerless lookii.g room. Presently the landlady, a bustling little woman of a nationality which I could only gueia at, comes in and pokes up the fire, piles some more wood on it ; asks me if I will have some tea, which I decline; assures me, in rtply to a question, that "there u lots of beautiful scenery about if people are only capable of enjoying it. If you hrvve 'an eye for the beautiful ' thero are any number of romantic spots worthy of your attention." People who have 'an eye for the beautiful' are delighted with the scenery around Kinloch, it ia so romantic." " I don't know whether or not I have 'an ej9 for the beautiful,' Mrs. OBrien," I remark ; " but if I find that I have not got one with mo this time I'll go to the best occulist in Melbourne when I return home, and get the best eye for the beautiful that's to be got i or money or "; but the honest woman had by this tima reaohed the door, and I saw her no more for ever, bping from henceforth waited on by her dau"hter. who, if she also had ' an eye for the beautiful,' carefully kept it to herself. Before going to bed I amuse myself while warming my toes, b/ looking over the visitors' book ; and I find that thcro are remarks left by numerous former visitors to Kinloch which indicate that an ' eje for the beautiful,' and a capacity for imparting to others the re->thetio bcautiea concealed from the ruij[ar eye, aie not uncommon to travtllers in these parts. One young lady, signing hereelf Julia, saj s : " How pweet are the waters of Lake Wakatip, As they break on the beautiful shore ; With Alfred beside me in our little ship, I ask not for anything more." To which Alfred replies : " When I see thy sweet face, in the wnt bo blue, Reflected from depths lacustrine ; I think, my sweet Ju, of nothing but you, And wish that you only were mine." This ia not bad ; but as Hiralet says, " worse remains behind." A page or two further on Ethel volunteers the information thai " it is delightful b^ing out on the lake in a little boat, especially by moonlight," which, being interpreted with a due regard to the portion which Ethel underlines, means that she al?o had her Alfred or Adolphus with her ; and that an ' eye for the beautiful ' has a deeper and profounder meaning than at first sight appears. But these lOmantic regions ?eem to teem with poets ; for a little further on the following charming verses Bppsar — than which Wordsworth or Cowp-'r, or all the lake poets put together have* not written anything more — more—; but read for yourself : " Oh ! beautiful Wakatipu 1 I'm txaeedingly partial to you ; Theie's Hawea and Harris, — I say without malice — Are neither a patch upon you ; Te Anu and Wanaka both — Tho' to cay it I am rather loath — They cannot compare With thy beauty ho rare, My lovely Lake Wakatipu." But although these versea are lovely, one cannot help but think of Touchstone's remark to Rosalind, when she read the verses of the amorous Oilando to herself; " Finin thi east to the western Ind No Jewel is like Rosalind. H<r worth being mounted on the wind Through all the world bears Rosalind, &c." Touchstone — " I'll rhyme you so, eight years together, dinners and suppers, and sleepmg hours ercepted ; it is the riyht butterwoman's rank to market." Bonalind.— " Out, fool 1 " Touchstone. — " Fcr a taste : — " if a hart do luck a hind, Let lum seek out Rosalind. If the cut will after kind So, ))e nuro, will Rosnhnd Winter garments must bo lined, So mu't slender Rosalind. They that resp must sheaf and bind, Then to cart with Rosalind. Sweetest nut has sourest nnd, Such a nut is Rosalind."

As I turn in, after carefully putting out the two kerosene lamps hanging from the vaulted roof of the Kinloch dining hall, I Wonder, before finally falling off to sleep, if Touchstone could have improved upon those sweet lines beginning "Oh! beautiful Wakatipu!" The sun is shining brightly into my chamber window when I get up next morning, and dashing the blind aside, gaze out at " beauti ful Wakatipu." What pen can describe the scene as it was revealed to my enraptured Raze ? Have I an eye for the beautiful ? Have I a soul to feel the thousand and one emotions whioh atir the heart of the artist or the poet in contemplation of auch a scene ? lam afraid not. How many enthusiastic tourists have visited Niagara and, gazing awe-struck at its world of waters thundering down into the mad whirlpool below, have been able to ejaculate nothing more than " How grand 1 how beautiful 1 " or some other equally original and profound remark.